William Merrill (Isabella County Sheriff's Department)
Bay City — A Central Michigan University professor who specialized in studying Internet censorship has pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography.
William Merrill admits in his plea agreement that he had a child porn video on his computer hard drive at Central Michigan University. He also admits to possessing more than 65,000 images.
Merrill pleaded guilty Thursday in Bay City federal court and faces at least five years in prison. He resigned from the university in November.
Merrill told a judge that he didn't watch the entire video but knew it was child porn. Staff at the Mount Pleasant school discovered videos last fall while investigating why 170 gigabytes were transferred from a campus computer.
MLive.com reports that Merrill's family and friends filled half the courtroom gallery.
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