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Eyes turned toward Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as his “mentee” was hit with a decades-long prison sentence in child pornography charges related to more than 500 victims.
“Any comment?”
(Video: WJZ)
Patrick Wojahn, the disgraced former mayor of College Park, Maryland, having pled guilty to 140 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday. The sentence, that had been whittled down from an original 150 years by Prince George’s County Circuit Judge Karen H. Mason, quickly became an indictment of the convict’s oft-touted mentor.
Tuesday, as the X account End Wokeness shared images of Buttigieg and Wojahn together with the caption, “Hey, @PeteButtigieg…Your good pal and mentee just received a 30-year prison sentence over a child p*rn case involving 500 victims. Any comment?” billionaire Elon Musk reacted, “500 victims!! What the hell?”
As previously reported, Wojahn had been arrested in March after a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led investigators to execute a search warrant at the then-mayor’s home resulting in an initial 56 child pornography-related charges.
During a press conference, Assistant State’s Attorney Monica Meyers explained that exploitation and sexual abuse of more than 500 children had been found on just the convict’s phone and that they had been able to identify 52 of the victims from around the world.
“People often refer to this as a victimless crime, or they try to justify the actions of the defendant by saying he didn’t touch anyone,” Meyers had said during a hearing. “The purpose of introducing all the statements by the victims today was to really convey behind every image he possessed is a story.”
When considering the relationship between Buttigieg and Wojahn, that included appearances at the White House together for events “Commemorating LGBTQ+ Pride Month” in 2021 and 2022, and others in Dec. 2022 and Jan. 2023, and reported regular phone calls from the time Wojahn was elected in 2015, social media users couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at Secretary Pete.
Like Buttigieg, Wojahn was in a homosexual relationship and his partner, Dave Kolesar said the disgraced mayor had experienced abuse as a child, according to a report from The Baltimore Banner. Kolesar also contended that the convict had faced pressure to accept the plea agreement that included five years’ probation and mandatory registration as a sex offender for 25 years.
In his own statement commenting on the “very dark and dangerous and destructive path” he had followed to child pornography, Wojahn expressed regret to the victims exploited by his actions. “From the bottom of my heart, I recognize the damage that I have caused. And I am truly, truly sorry.”
