Quoted Text

Ex-music director
is sentenced on
child porn charge

    ALBANY — The former director of music at the Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints in Albany was sentenced Monday in federal court to 72 months in prison on a child pornography charge.
    Charles L. Burks, 28, formerly of Slingerlands, appeared before U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy and was ordered to serve a 15-year term of supervised release. McAvoy also directed that he have no unsupervised contact with minors, participate in a sex offender program and register with the New York State Sex Offender Registry Program.
    Burks pleaded guilty July 17, 2007, and as part of the plea agreement admitted that while he lived in Slingerlands, he received child pornography on his computers.
    He was arrested June 12, 2006, in Syracuse and charged with endangering the welfare of a child. He was charged with using a mirror to view young boys using the rest rooms at the Alliance Bank Stadium during a Skychiefs’ baseball game.
    The next day, a federal search warrant was executed at Burks’ residence and computers were recovered. Forensic examinations of these computers were subsequently conducted. A number of computer movie files and still images which depict minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct were recovered from these computers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
    Burks admitted that he received images which depict individuals under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct.
    At the time of the offense, Burks was the musical director at the Cathedral of All Saints. He has also been employed for four summers as counselor and music director at the Lake Delaware Boys Camp in Delhi, New York.