When talking about U.S. prison rate, the author of 'A Time to Kill' previously mentioned a friend who received 3-year jail sentence after viewing child porn online when he was drunk.
- Oct 18, 2014
AceShowbiz - John Grisham recently made headlines following his comments about prison sentence for people who viewed child pornography. In an interview with The Telegraph earlier this week, Grisham argued that not all people who viewed child porn are pedophile and that prison sentence might be too harsh, sharing a story of a friend who received 3-year jail sentence after downloading child porn when he was drunk.
The friend now has spoken out. Speaking to Daily Mail, Michael Holleman said that he deserved his jail sentence despite Grisham's defense. "I did something wrong and I don't have a bit of resentment about the way I was treated," he was quoted as saying.
"It's illegal and should be punished. If it's a crime, it's a crime. There's a violation of the right of privacy involved. There's people now who, because of the internet, who are making child pornography so they can share it across the internet. There are good reasons for it to be illegal and punished," Holleman added.
"We have prisons now filled with guys my age. Sixty-year-old white men in prison who have never harmed anybody, would never touch a child. But they got online one night and started surfing around, probably had too much to drink or whatever, and pushed the wrong buttons, went too far and got into child porn," Grisham previously said, before retracting his statement and making an apology.
Rosie O'Donnell, who is a victim of child abuse, blasted the famed author in Friday's episode of "The View". "Did John Grisham feel like these people needed a champion and he was it? I actually was horrified by what he said, as was most of the country because now he's issued an apology... Nobody accidentally stumbles onto child pornography. If I were the police, I'd look at John Grisham's hard drive right now," she said.
