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Michigan Man Claims He’s An 8-Year-Old Girl While Defending Child Porn Collection
Joseph Gobrick, 45, drew sexually suggestive images of children while in jail awaiting trial, authorities said.
A Grand Rapids man tried to fight the child porn charges against him by insisting he identifies as an 8-year-old.
Joseph Gobrick, 45, a convicted sex offender, made the bizarre admission in court during his trial.
“I’ve always been an 8-year-old girl,’’ Gobrick said during his sentencing, WZZM reported. “And even my drawings and fantasies, I am always an 8-year-old girl.’’
Gobrick had been charged with three counts of child sexually abusive activity and one count of using computers to commit a crime, according to a felony complaint obtained by Oxygen.com. He was found guilty and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison on Dec. 18, separate court documents show.
He had argued that much of his stash of child porn was computer-animated — and thus protected under free speech laws. However, authorities said a number of actual victims — from infants to children roughly the age of 5 — were identified in the illicit images uncovered by police, WZZM reported, citing court documents.
“I would no sooner have sex with a child than you would with a rattlesnake,’’ he said to the judge presiding over his trial. “It’s just not safe.’’
Gobrick also used an analogy referencing the Holocaust to justify his behavior.
“Under the law, Auschwitz was legal,’’ Gobrick stated, referencing the infamous Nazi death camp. “What you’re doing here is wrong, just as Auschwitz was.’’
But the judge wasn’t persuaded.
“Based on everything he’s said and done, including bragging about what he was drawing in his cell, he obviously doesn’t think child sexually abusive material is wrong,’’ Kent County Circuit Court Judge Paul Denenfeld said, according to WZZM. “This isn’t just virtual stuff; this is also real people being harmed.’’
Gobrick was appointed a public defender, but the 45-year-old opted instead to represent himself during trial, prosecutors said.
“Obviously we were very satisfied by the verdict of the jury and the sentence imposed by the judge because Mr. Gobrick was engaged in some very disturbing behavior,” Kent County prosecutor Christopher Becker told Oxygen.com in a statement. “Unfortunately, our office handles many cases involving child sexually abusive material; these types of cases are becoming far too common. It is good to see individuals held accountable when they are caught.”
Assistant prosecutor Daniel Helmer described Gobrick as “a danger to the public,” WZZM reported. Authorities said that during trial, Gobrick spoke openly of child rape and drew sexually suggestive images of children while incarcerated.
“Even during the trial, the defendant continued to draw, talking about raping babies in the Kent County Jail and making other statements about how this is his constitutional right to continue to do so," Helmer said, according to WZZM.
He was booked in 2018 after a missing Ohio teenager was discovered in his Michigan home. Detectives then subsequently found a trove of child pornography on his comuter.
Gobrick, who has a 2001 sexual abuse conviction out of New York, contends he is not sexually attracted to children.
