NEW ULM — A 60-year-old New Ulm man, facing eight felony charges for child pornography found on his computer in 2017 and 2018, was convicted of one felony count and received a stay of imposition in Brown County District Court Nov. 10.

Richard A. Isbell, 1004 Spring St. N., New Ulm, pleaded guilty Sept. 1 to possessing pornographic work on a computer. The other seven counts were dismissed.

Isbell was sentenced to 60 days local confinement to be served in two 30-day segments. If he complies with the staggered sentence and files a timely petition and a corresponding probation recommendation, the jail segment may be deferred by the Court. He was fined $1,585 and ordered to serve five years supervised probation.

He was ordered to obtain a psychological-sexual evaluation and follow all recommendations, have no contact with persons under age 18 or unrelated minor persons under age 18 unless approved by probation.

Isbell cannot possess or use any pornographic/sexually explicit material, can have no access or use of Internet without approval, must register as a predatory offender, may not use or possess firearms, ammunition or explosives, and cannot register to vote or vote until probation discharge.

On Nov. 22, 2017, New Ulm Police investigators learned a person dropped off an external hard drive at Tech Trends in New Ulm before a Tech Trends employee stumbled upon files that appeared to be child pornography.

The same day, police met with a the first witness and their supervisor at Tech Trends. A second witness handed over two external hard drives, one of which contained child porn, the other a new drive the information was to be transferred to.

Investigators got a search warrant for the external hard drive to search for images and videos of child porn and found photos and videos of girls he estimated to be as young as about seven to possibly 17 years old in various stages of nudity.

On Nov. 27, police executed a search warrant for Isbell’s residence, vehicle, and person. Items seized at his home included an iPhone, iPad, several thumb drives, flash media cards, external hard drives and burnable DVD/CD discs. What was believed to be child porn was found on Isbell’s main computer tower.

The investigator marked 267 images as photos of girls appearing to be under age 18 and fully or partially nude.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@

nujournal.com).