Crime & Safety
Athens Man Pleads Guilty in Case Involving Child Pornography
Budge Earl Williams will serve three years behind bars.
A Vietnam veteran and former newspaper columnist pleaded guilty on Friday, Aug. 9, 2013 in Oconee County Superior Court to two counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony.
Judge Lawton Stephens of the Western Judicial Circuit sentenced 71-year-old Budge Earl Williams to 10 years for each count, three of which are to be served in confinement, according to Clerk of Court Angela Watson. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Additionally, Williams cannot have access to computers and is banned from Oconee County, Watson said.
Watkinsville Police arrested Williams in August 2012 after Oconee County Library patrons said they saw him looking at images of child pornography on a computer. He was indicted on two counts of criminal attempt to commit the crime of sexual exploitation of a child later that month.
Williams was on probation for a federal weapons violation charge at the time of the arrest, and in May 2013 was sentenced to 10 months in a federal detention facility, according to an earlier report in the Athens Banner-Herald.
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