Kids Mural Nonprofit Director Gets Six Years in Child Porn Case

A San Francisco man who ran a nonprofit children's art organization that has worked with  has been sentenced in federal court in the city to six years in prison for child pornography possession.

Anthony Josef Norris, 46, the founder and former director of Kid Serve Youth Murals, was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg. The judge also ordered him to pay $6,500 in restitution.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said the restitution will be divided among child pornography victims identified in Norris's collection. Norris pleaded guilty before Seeborg in November to one count of possession of child pornography.

Haag said Norris admitted during the plea to possessing more than 600 images on his computer showing children engaged in sex acts with adults, including images of prepubescent children being subjected to painful sexual assaults.

Through Kid Serve, which he founded in 2003, Norris worked with Bay Area school children to create outdoor murals. According to its former website, the group worked with third graders from Old Mill School over 14 weeks during the winter of 2007-2008 to create the large mosaic mural in the school's playground. The organization began in San Francisco and later expanded to work with children in Oakland, Berkeley and Marin and Contra Costa counties, according to a history on the group's former website.

after FBI agents discovered he had posted child pornography videos online under the name of "Spanky" and then traced the posting to Norris's home computer.

After his arrest, San Francisco Unified School District officials said they discovered offensive images hidden in small tiles in at least three murals he created at schools and other sites around the city.

In a sentencing brief filed last week, federal prosecutors said school district officials removed a total of 25 pornographic tiles from murals on walls at the San Miguel Child Development Center and Visitacion Valley Middle School. No pornographic tiles were discovered at the Old Mill mural, Mill Valley Police said at the time of Norris' arrest.

Seeborg ordered Norris, who is currently free on $200,000 bail, to surrender to begin serving his sentence on May 8.

--Bay City News Service