06/19/05 — Ex-dentist sentenced for child porn

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Ex-dentist sentenced for child porn

By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on June 19, 2005 2:00 AM

A former dentist at Caswell Center in Kinston was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a federal court in Georgia for engaging in sexual activity with a child and for possession and distributing child pornography.

Guilford Watson, 56, of Goldsboro, was sentenced June 8. A jury found him guilty of the charges in September.

Watson had worked as a dentist at Caswell since 1979, said a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

David E. Nahmias, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said the charges and subsequent convictions stem from a events in May 2004 that linked Watson with a disabled Atlanta child whom he solicited to engage in illegal sexual acts.

The child's parents told the FBI that Watson communicated with the child over the Internet and the telephone.

The FBI launched an investigation during which an undercover agent posed as a 12-year-old girl.

When FBI agents searched Watson's home and computer, they discovered hundreds of images of child pornography, including dozens of movie images, Nahmius said.

On May 31, 2004, Watson drove from North Carolina to Atlanta to have sex with the girl. He was arrested at a motel.