The former IT administrator for the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corp. pleaded guilty Friday in Anchorage Superior Court to possessing and distributing more than 2 million downloads of child pornography, which he obtained using a Bethel hospital's network infrastructure.
Gene Geisler, 39, will be sentenced Nov. 11 on a single consolidated count of distribution of child porn. Prosecutors said he faced 76 separate charges at the time of his arrest.
Geisler is originally from North Carolina. He sent pictures of child porn from Bethel to an undercover investigator working with the Alaska Bureau of Investigation in Anchorage while he was employed at YKHC, according to Assistant Attorney General Adam Alexander.
He used the YKHC hospital's network infrastructure and his home computer to download images and videos, according to the charging document.
Since Geisler's departure, the health consortium has brought in an IT consultant to review security protocols and provide recommendation for improvement, said vice president of communications Tiffany Zulkosky. It has also invested in IT monitoring services and tightened internal staff access to the network, she said.
A grand jury indicted Geisler on Aug. 12, 2015. The next day, he was arrested on the other side of the country, in South Carolina.
As part of his plea, Geisler admitted he possessed about 29 terabytes of "child erotica or child sexual exploitation," comprising at least 2 million images and 13,000 videos, Alexander said.
The prosecutor previously told Alaska Dispatch News it was the largest quantity of child sexual exploitation images and videos that law enforcement has encountered in a state case.
"These are difficult and resource-intensive cases to investigate, but by his own admission Geisler was one of the largest-volume distributors of images of child sexual exploitation in Alaska, and (ABI's Technical Crimes Unit) deserves a great deal of credit for this investigation," Alexander said Friday.
The sentencing range for a typical first-time felony offender convicted of distributing child porn in Alaska is two to 12 years, but Geisler's plea stipulates that his offense was more serious than similar cases. He faces a maximum sentence of 99 years as a result.