The Associated Press State & Local Wire

December 8, 2011 Thursday 3:53 AM GMT

Child psychiatrist gets a year in prison for porn

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL

LENGTH: 270 words

DATELINE: BILLINGS Mont.

A former child and adolescent psychiatrist from Billings who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography was sentenced Wednesday to about a year in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom sentenced 49-year-old James H. Peak to a year and one day in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Peak also must register as a sex offender.
Prosecutors say he went to the FBI in February to report he had received a mailing offering child pornography for sale. Peak then met with a U.S. Postal Inspector and acknowledged he collected child pornography and that it was an interest he fought for many years.
A search of Peak’s residence turned up movies, and Peak printed out credit card statements confirming the purchases of the movies.
He voluntarily surrendered his medical license, completed a 90-day inpatient treatment program and has enrolled in sexual offender treatment in Billings.
The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/uxB5bS ) reports that in a brief statement Wednesday, Peak apologized to all those he had hurt and disappointed, especially his former patients and their families. Letting them down, he said, “is heartbreaking.”
He wrote in a letter to Shanstrom, “As painful as the last year has been, I am grateful to finally be rid of trying to live the double life of being a respected physician while secretly struggling with difficult sexual thoughts.”
Peak worked at Billings Clinic as a child and adolescent psychiatrist from 1994 until he was suspended earlier this year.
Shanstrom said he believed reports and polygraph testing that indicated Peak had never touched a child inappropriately.