Judge Officially Dismisses Child Porn Charges Against Mark Salling After His Suicide
Feb. 7 2018, Published 6:16 p.m. ET
Mark Salling’s criminal child pornography charges were officially dismissed by a federal judge after his suicide, RadarOnline.com can confirm.
Legal documents obtained by RadarOnline.com stated that Judge Otis. D. Wright ended the case — which included claims the actor possessed 50,000 images of "sadistic" and "masochistic" child porn — on February 7, a week after Salling was found hanging in a tree by authorities.
“For good cause shown, it is hereby ordered that: The government’s motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is granted. The indictment in the above referenced case is dismissed without prejudice,” the documents obtained by RadarOnline.com stated.
As RadarOnline.com previously exclusively reported on February 6, the Department of Justice requested all charges be dropped against the late Glee star in his child porn case due to his death.
Salling pleaded guilty to the charges in 2017 and was scheduled to be sentenced for the crime in March. He was expected to be given four to seven years in prison.
Assistant US Attorney Joey Blanch said in court in 2017 that Salling possessed 50,000 images of child erotica altogether, 4,000 of which were found on his laptop.
Authorities said Salling downloaded those images from the Internet sometime between April to December 2015. One of the images was produced in the UK, and featured a girl 3 to 5 years old. Blanch also said Salling organized his collection of child porn by categories that included the name and age of each victim.
Blanch said Salling showed child porn to a woman he was in relationship with, which was then reported to authorities.
Salling committed suicide on January 30, and the cause of death was “asphyxia by hanging,” the Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesperson Ed Winter told RadarOnline.com.
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