Man sentenced in child porn case

A former Tracy resident was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for receipt and sharing of child pornography, the U.S. attorney's office announced. Christopher J. Tonkin, 38, who most recently lived in Brentwood, will be on supervised release for 10 years after his release from prison.

According to court documents, between March 24, 2008, and Feb. 11, 2011, Tonkin received visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

On Feb. 16, 2011, agents executed a search warrant at Tonkin's house. They found an external hard drive that was connected to a desktop computer that Tonkin had used to store images of child pornography downloaded through a file-sharing network. The hard drive contained more than 50,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

As part of the file-sharing network, Tonkin made his collection of images available to others to upload in exchange for their images and videos.