A pedophile last week defended his possession of child sex images by telling a Michigan judge he identifies as an 8-year-old girl.
“I’ve always been an 8-year-old girl. And even in my drawings and fantasies, I’m always an 8-year-old girl,” said Joseph Gobrick, 45. “Whenever we did this, there are adults having sex with me in an online forum as an 8-year-old girl.”
Gobrick, who represented himself in Kent County Circuit Court, also argued that the depraved images found on a computer at his Grand Rapids home were covered by the First Amendment. He claimed they were computer-generated, but police said eight child victims were actually identified in his collection.
The images showed children between the ages of infancy and 5 being sexually abused, WLTX reported Wednesday, citing court records.
Judge Paul Denenfeld sentenced Gobrick to between 10 and 20 years in prison. He had earlier convicted Gobrick of three counts of child sexually abusive commercial activity and using a computer to commit a crime.
“Based on everything he’s said and done, including bragging about what he was drawing in his cell, he obviously doesn’t think child sexually abusive material is wrong,’’ Denenfeld said. “This isn’t just virtual stuff; this is also real people being harmed.’’
Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Helmer called Gobrick “a danger to the public.’’
“Even during the trial, the defendant continued to draw, talking about raping babies in the Kent County Jail and making other statements about how this is his constitutional right to continue to do so,” Helmer said.
Joseph Gobrick says he’s innocent
Despite his conviction, Gobrick continued to maintain his innocence at sentencing. He challenged the legality of the prosecution, comparing it to the Nazi Holocaust.
“Under the law, Auschwitz was legal,” he said. “What you’re doing here is wrong, just as Auschwitz was.”
At the same time, Gobrick assured the judge that he would never abuse a child in real life.
“I would no sooner have sex with a child than you would with a rattlesnake,” he said. “It’s just not safe.”
Police arrested Gobrick in 2018 after finding a missing 17-year-old girl at him home. They then searched his computer and discovered the sexual images of children.
Gobrick was previously convicted of sexual abuse in New York in 2001.
*story by Pluralist