VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Convicted school bomb plotter, Philip Bay was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison for child porn charges on Tuesday.
According to Virginia Beach's Office of the Commonwealth's Attorney, Bay was found guilty of 20 counts of possession of child pornography charges on Aug. 29 in a bench trial. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced Bay to 100 years in prison with 80 years suspended.
"I think it's a very appropriate sentence, taking into account the victimization of children," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Brandon Emery told 13News Now Tuesday. Emery added, "His record and guidelines were elevated because of the previous offense."
Court documents from July 13, 2023, revealed Bay's charges stem from alleged explicit photos of children between the ages of 8 to 12 years old on a cloud service account linked to his phone called Synchronoss Technologies.
In court on Tuesday, the Commonwealth’s Attorney provided evidence that in October 2022, Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. submitted 13 reports of child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding one of their user's accounts.
According to Commonwealth's Attorney, the child pornography was determined to have been uploaded between Oct. 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023.
NCMEC then relayed this information to Virginia Beach police on Dec. 20, 2022, and an investigation began into identifying the individual uploading the child pornography.
Police issued a search warrant to Synchronoss Technologies and discovered numerous files pertaining to child pornography including photos of Bay in "various states of undress," and PDF documents containing links to outside websites, containing graphic language revolving around child pornography. There were also photos and documents that revealed Bay's address, phone number, social security and driver's license numbers.
From April to June 2023, investigators surveilled Bay's residence on Saville Garden Way in Virginia Beach before arresting him on June 22, 2023.
During Tuesday's hearing, a former Landstown High School staff member testified about Bay's character, calling him "one of the smartest students he's worked with." Bay himself addressed the court for roughly 40 minutes during allocation.
During that time, and in a 21-page personal statement submitted to the court, Bay insisted he did not upload the images, adding he didn't even know the cloud server was activated. He told the court, "The sexual abuse of children is a serious, egregious crime." He added, "Just because there's smoke doesn't mean I'm the one lighting the fire."
After the hearing, Emery addressed Bay's denial of guilt, saying, "I don’t think it’s a wise move to spend so much time on allocution fighting the decision the judge has already made when it’s the same judge that’s about to hand out the sentence."
Almost 13 years before he was accused of child pornography, Bay was convicted in 2010 of plotting to blow up Landstown High School in Virginia Beach.
Bay was sentenced to 12 years in prison, with 56 additional years of suspended time, for conspiracy after investigators uncovered his plan to carry out a violent attack at Landstown High School on the 10th anniversary of the deadly 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting in Colorado.
He addressed his previous conviction in court Tuesday, saying he's "profoundly embarrassed" about his past. He added, "What I did was very wrong, and I live with it on a daily basis. I loathe it."
For that crime, he spent two years in a juvenile facility before being transferred to prison at age 21.
Bay's attorney at Tuesday's sentencing was also part of his legal team for the Landstown High School case. He announced after the hearing Bay plans to appeal the judge's conviction.
The Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney's office said it plans to pursue a probation violation case against Bay, since he is convicted of committing a crime while on probation for the 2009 crime. For that, up to 56 years could be added to his sentence. That number is the suspended time he did not serve behind bars in the Landstown High School plot case.
