PHILADELPHIA — A seldom-employed psychopath was sentenced Wednesday to spend the rest of his life in prison for making a huge cache of child pornography that shows him sexually assaulting a dozen children, including infants at a girlfriend's in-home day care.The FBI found John Jackey Worman with more than 1 million images and 11,000 videos of child pornography when they arrested him in suburban Philadelphia in 2007. Worman made girls in his care perform sex acts for school lunch money.
"I cannot know ... what was going through your head while you were molesting my daughter. Was it a big joke as I pulled away each day?" the mother of one of the abused infants asked Worman during testimony Wednesday. He stared blankly ahead.
Worman has told prison doctors he feels no remorse for sexually "anointing" his female victims.
"I am totally at peace with everything I have done," he said, according to U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who sentenced him to 120 years in prison.
A teenager who had been abused for several years ultimately tipped off authorities, after watching an episode of "Law & Order" about child sexual abuse. She only then realized it had been wrong, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella said.
That led to last year's trial, when jurors, who sometimes asked for breaks from viewing the evidence, convicted Worman of 56 child-pornography counts.
The sentencing judge described Worman, 42, of Colwyn, as a psychopath who sponged off women and sadistically coerced his young victims.
Remarkably, the judge found, Worman has no mental-health diagnosis or childhood trauma that would help explain his crimes. Psychiatric tests conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons revealed only that he is a pedophile with an anti-social personality disorder.
Worman described his childhood as a good one in which he was free to do as he liked. He told the medical staff he started using alcohol and marijuana at age 11, and dropped out of 10th grade.
He lived in his mother's basement in Colwyn through his 40s, sometimes with a girlfriend's three children — the woman herself never moved in. He also rigged hidden cameras at the home of another girlfriend, baby sitter Concetta Jackson.
Jackson, 46, of Collingdale is in prison awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to one child-pornography count. Prosecutors say she procured some of the victims for Worman.
Ex-girlfriend Dorothy Prawdzik of Drexel Hill, who went to trial, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for undressing and posing young girls for Worman. Prawdzik, 45, also held the camera while he tried to rape an infant and participated with Worman in a three-way sexual encounter with a 10-year-old girl.
The mother who tried to get answers from Worman in court describes herself now as a tortured, overprotective parent. Her daughter does not remember the abuse — but the woman can't forget it.
The Associated Press is not identifying her to protect her daughter's identity, and is not identifying other sexual-abuse victims in the case.
Worman declined to make a statement Wednesday. His court-appointed lawyer argued against a life term, comparing it to "putting down" an animal.
"A sentence that basically says we're putting you down does not recognize whatever degree of humanity exists in Mr. Worman," lawyer Mark Cedrone said.
Stengel nonetheless said he sought to craft a life term.
The victim who first disclosed the abuse to police is now a 21-year-old wife and expectant mother. After the hearing, she was congratulated for how she came to earn her childhood nickname, "Mouthy."
"That was the best nickname for (me)," she said as she hugged an FBI agent who worked the case. "I'm just happy that it's all over."
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