TORONTO — Bestselling author John Grisham apologized Thursday for criticizing long prison sentences for men who download child porn.
“I regret having made these comments,” he said in a statement posted online, “and apologize to all.”
In an interview with UK newspaper The Telegraph, Grisham said: “We have prisons now filled with guys my age — 60-year-old white men in prison who’ve never harmed anybody, would never touch a child.”
The author of such novels as A Time to Kill and The Firm cited a case involving a law school friend who was swept up in a Canadian sting operation.
“His drinking was out of control, and he went to a website. It was labelled ’16-year-old wannabee hookers or something like that’. And it said ’16-year-old girls’. So he went there. Downloaded some stuff – it was 16 year old girls who looked 30,” Grisham recalled.
“He shouldn’t ’a done it. It was stupid, but it wasn’t 10-year-old boys. He didn’t touch anything. And God, a week later there was a knock on the door: ‘FBI!’ and it was sting set up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to catch people – sex offenders – and he went to prison for three years.”
READ MORE: 7th Heaven actor Stephen Collins faces new sex crime investigation
Grisham said lawmakers and judges need to distinguish between sexual abusers and those who do nothing more than download pictures and videos.
“I have no sympathy for real pedophiles. God, please lock those people up,” the author said. “But so many of these guys do not deserve harsh prison sentences.
“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.”
But in his statement Thursday, Grisham stressed: “Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure, or who in any way participates in child pornography—online or otherwise—should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
He said his comments were not “intended to show sympathy for those convicted of sex crimes, especially the sexual molestation of children.
“I can think of nothing more despicable.”
Grisham’s latest novel, Gray Mountain, is out Oct. 23.
This post has been updated with Grisham’s statement.
Comments