Nottingham Man Pleads Guilty To Child Pornography Production

BALTIMORE, MD — A Nottingham man who worked at a Maryland hospital pleaded guilty this week to production of child pornography, prosecutors said. He made pornography of a teen he sexually assaulted while on the job as a post-anesthesia care unit technician, court records say.

Donald Benson Jr., 42, admitted to taking pictures of a 15-year-old girl while she was unconscious while he was working in an official capacity at Franklin Square Hospital, including when her father left the room for a phone call, prosecutors said.

Benson, who lives in the 3400 block Park Falls Drive in Nottingham, worked at the hospital from 2011 until his arrest in February 2020, officials reported. Among his responsibilities were sitting with patients awaiting emergency evaluations, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said they began investigating Benson following a tip in December 2019 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that he had child pornography associated with his email account. Yahoo had alerted officials that 337 files of possible child pornography had been uploaded to his email account from 2015 to 2019, prosecutors said.

Among the files were 13 pictures he took of a 15-year-old girl he sexually assaulted while working at Franklin Square Hospital in September 2016, officials said.

When investigators executed a search warrant on Benson's home on Feb. 6, 2020, they seized a variety of electronics, including a CD depicting child pornography from 1999 to 2013.

Benson faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years in prison with up to a lifetime of supervised release for production of child pornography, prosecutors said.

In December 2020, a judge granted his request for home detention, and he has been in the custody of his mother on 24/7 lockdown, court records show.

Officials said he will be sentenced at 9:15 a.m. on Aug. 3 in Baltimore by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake.