SU student gets 30 days in jail in child porn case

WINCHESTER — A Shenandoah University student pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of child pornography and will serve 30 days in jail.

Matthew Gustavo Martz, 21 — who lives on campus at SU — appeared with attorney Michael Sawyer in Frederick County Circuit Court and made the plea as part of an agreement with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

As part of the plea agreement, two other possession of child pornography charges were not prosecuted.

Judge Clay Athey presided over the case — in which Martz also was sentenced to serve five years of supervised probation and five years of unsupervised probation.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Glenn Williamson said at the hearing that in April, Frederick County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to an on-campus residence at SU for reports that a student possessed child pornography on an external hard drive.

He said Martz was very cooperative from the beginning of the investigation and provided the child pornography recordings from his hard drive — which depicted individuals “obviously under the age of 18” engaged in sexual acts.

Williamson said Martz told deputies the porn was downloaded a number of years earlier when he was a juvenile.

Martz — who stood solemn, dressed in a black suit — said he was 12 or 13 when he downloaded the porn and was “exploring his sexuality.”

“I take full responsibility for my actions ... at that time I wasn’t thinking about the ramifications and consequences,” he said in a statement to the court. “But it’s my fault for not deleting [the porn] and unknowingly holding onto [it].”

The court is allowing Martz to serve his 30-day sentence between school semesters and on the weekends.

— Contact Melissa Boughton at mboughton@winchesterstar.com