Man Who Plotted to Imprison Child Gets 27 Years

A sentencing today in Worcester, Mass., makes for rough reading: Prosecutors say 40-year-old Geoffrey Portway plotted to kidnap a child and then imprison, torture, kill, and cannibalize him in his homemade dungeon, reports the Boston Globe. The feds arrested Portway and a co-conspirator before anyone was abducted and seized a massive collection of violent child pornography from Portway's computer. He got 27 years in federal prison today.

Portway's lawyer says his client deserved time for the pornography but insisted the kidnapping plot was just a fantasy—including the child-size cage, coffin, restraints, and implements of torture found in a sound-proof dungeon in his basement, reports the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. “That is all I live for. I am serious," Portway wrote in one email of his plot. "It's the only thing that gets me up in the morning." He's a UK native and will be deported once he serves his sentence. (More Worcester stories.)