Eye surgeon faces sentence in porn case (Connecticut)

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | April 15, 2006 | Ben Conery

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WATERBURY -- A superior court judge next week will decide the fate of Dr. James Coppeto, a well-known city eye surgeon who pleaded guilty to child pornography charges.

Coppeto, 61, pleaded guilty in February under an agreement that likely will spare him a decades-long prison sentence.

When he is sentenced Friday in Waterbury Superior Court, Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly will ask Judge Frank Iannotti to sentence Coppeto to 15 years in prison, suspended after he serves seven-and-a-half years, and 10 years' probation. Coppeto's lawyer, William St. John of Waterbury, will ask Iannotti to give his client probation.

Iannotti has not indicated what sentence he will impose, but has said Coppeto could be placed on the state's sex offender registry for the rest of his life. Coppeto was arrested last June after a computer technician hired to install an additional hard drive and DVD burner on one of Coppeto's home computers stumbled upon thousands of images of child pornography.

A few days later, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, the technician told police. Police used the technician's statement as the basis for a search warrant for Coppeto's home at 51 Oakville Ave., a five-bedroom colonial-style brick house at the end of a curving driveway.

A detective found 1,000 images of child pornography on a computer seized from Coppeto's house. The children in the images, which were imported from the Internet, are believed to be as young as 1 and as old as 15. The photographs graphically depict children posed suggestively or engaged in sex acts with adults.

The discoveries shocked those who knew Coppeto as a Yale and Harvard educated eye surgeon and father of five high-achieving children.

Coppeto kept an office at 541 Wolcott St. that he closed last fall. He specialized in ophthalmology, and focused on neurological diseases of the eye and corrective surgeries.

Coppeto's guilty pleas to first-degree possession of child pornography and importing child pornography came under the Alford Doctrine, meaning he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him at trial. The pleas allow Coppeto to avoid a trial where, if convicted, he could have faced up to 40 years in prison.