Concord
J. Martin Favor, on paid leave since his September arrest, pleaded guilty in March and resigned earlier this month. He could have received up to 10 years in prison. His lawyer said a decision hasn’t been made yet on whether Favor will appeal.
Favor, a Plainfield resident, will have to take part in sex offender treatment programs. His sentence, scheduled to start Aug. 5, will be followed by six years of supervised release.
U.S. Attorney Emily Gray Rice said “prosecuting those who possess child pornography is crucial to destabilizing this black market and undermining the normalization of child sexual abuse.”
Favor’s lawyer, George Ostler, of Norwich, said the Ivy League English professor recognized he suffers from an addiction and has committed himself to mental health treatment.
“Through the years, Mr. Favor played an active and a robust role in the academic community and was widely respected, not only at Dartmouth, but throughout the country,” Ostler said in a court document before sentencing.
Favor, 49, was arrested at his Plainfield home after authorities said he uploaded four suspected images of child porn through his account on Tumblr, a cross between a social networking site and a blog.
Authorities say the images were uploaded to an account associated with his IP address and were traced back to him.
Prosecutors said investigators searching his home computer and flash drive found more than 500 videos and 300 still images depicting children, some as young as toddlers, being sexually abused.
Favor began teaching at Dartmouth in 1993 and was granted tenure six years later. He was an associate professor of English and former chairman of the African and African-American Studies program.