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Martin J. Rothschild is led away in handcuffs after sentencing this morning in County Court.

(Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, NY -- Former East Syracuse lawyer Martin J. Rothschild said he had 'remorse for these children' in asking a judge for mercy in sentencing this morning on child pornography.

But County Court Judge Anthony Aloi was not swayed. He sentenced Rothschild to three years in state prison for promoting sexual performance by a child, as part of a plea agreement reached in April.

The longtime personal injury lawyer lost his law license and will be a registered sex offender upon his release. Rothschild will also face three years of supervision after leaving prison.

Rothschild admitted to storing child pornography on the social media site, Tumblr. Prosecutors said he had at least 30 videos, but he only pleaded to one count of child pornography because of the agreed-upon prison sentence.

Prosecutors said Rothschild got the images from the popular photo-sharing website and left them open to be shared with others.

Prosecutors painted Rothschild as an enabler of child sexual assault, calling the illegal images not porn, but crime scene photos.

After court, his lawyer, Stephen Lance Cimino, explained that since Tumblr had no warnings that the photos Rothschild found of young children engaged in sex acts were real, that Rothschild never understood the crime behind them.

Cimino said that his client could have believed the images were staged Hollywood productions.

But Cali responded that anyone who viewed those images would have known they were illegal.

Tumblr is a Facebook-like social media site that is popular for sharing photos. Cali said it also served as the primary way Rothschild found child porn. Cimino said it should be shut down.

Martin J. Rothschild asks County Court Judge Anthony Aloi for mercy before sentencing. Rothschild was sentenced to three years in prison for child pornography.

In court, Rothschild admitted that he was addicted to pornography and had begun to get therapy since the investigation began.

Cimino said that Rothschild's porn addiction led to increasingly deviant behavior, which resulted in him getting child porn.

Since his office and Manlius home were raided for child porn in February, Rothschild has started a foundation, Hope for Recovery, that aims to help young people avoid sexting, cyberbullying and child pornography.

Cimino and fellow lawyer August Nordone are on the board. So is former state Supreme Court Justice John Cherundolo, who returned to private practice and took over Rothschild's cases after his arrest in April.

"I seek to have redemption," Rothschild told the judge before he was led away to prison.