OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) – An Oakland, California man was sentenced to ten years in jail last Wednesday for distributing thousands of pictures of child pornography, prosecutors said on Monday.

Philip Joseph Sullivan, a registered sex offender, was indicted by a federal grand jury on November 13, 2008 on charges of distribution, transportation, and possession of child porn, said Joseph P. Russoniello, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California.

According to court documents, the defendant frequently went onto AOL chat rooms dedicated to discussions about sexual conduct with children and had distributed pornographic pictures of children through his AOL user accounts.

His pornographic picture collection contained more than two thousand images of prepubescent children being penetrated, bound, and sodomized.

The defendant plead guilty, with a plea agreement, to one count of child pornography distribution on August 27.

Sullivan’s sentence was handed down last Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton, which he began the same day.

Upon release from jail, a ten year term of supervised release is instituted. Along with this, he is subjected to a restriction on his computer usage, the location of his residence, a search condition, and the continued registration a sex offender.

The defendant previously admitted to touching a six year old female friend of his daughter at home, which led to his registration as a sex offender after a state court conviction in 1981.

The prosecution, which began after an FBI investigation, was led by Assistant US Attorney Katherine B. Dowling with her assistants Rawaty Yim and Rosario Calderon.