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Man who lied about assets to get free defense counsel is convicted of perjury in federal court

Already serving an almost 19-year federal prison sentence for possessing and transporting child pornography, a New York man was convicted of perjury last week in federal court in Syracuse.

Prosecutors said Joseph Jenkins, 45, concealed $200,000 in investment accounts and his ownership of boats and recreational vehicles when applying for court-appointed defense counsel in the child-porn case, reports the Watertown Daily Times. He could get as much as five years when he is sentenced in August.

The self-employed electrician’s criminal case began when he was crossing the Canadian border into the U.S. on May 24, 2009, according to court records. During a secondary inspection, border agents on the Canadian side found child pornography on a laptop computer that had been on his car’s back seat.

Charged in Canada with possession of child pornography on the laptop and a thumb drive, Jenkins didn’t appear for trial. So he was charged in the U.S. child-porn case, after the Ontario Provincial Police referred the investigation to the Department of Homeland Security. Prosecutors said he had child pornography in Jefferson County before he went to Canada, the newspaper article explains.

Phone calls he made to his parents from jail helped convict him in both the child-porn and perjury cases, according to a Syracuse.com article published last year.

“I’ve been telling people all along that there wasn’t 3,800 pictures,” Jenkins told his mother in March 2012, complaining that the charges against him were exaggerated. “It was more like 100.”

He also asked his parents, over the phone, to move $37,000 from an account in his name to one in their name and hide cash he kept in a safe, the Syracuse.com article says. A subsequent review of his bank records revealed that he also had a $138,000 retirement account.