Latest news with #Mumford
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Yahoo
Retired Tampa police officer sentenced to more than a century in prison after child porn conviction
The Brief A former Tampa police officer will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was handed a lengthy prison sentence on Friday. It comes after he was convicted earlier this year on 100 counts of possessing child pornography. He was working as a reserve officer with TPD when more than 100 images of child pornography were found on his devices. TAMPA, Fla. - A former Tampa police officer was sentenced to more than a century in prison. On Friday, Paul Mumford was sentenced to 111 years in prison, after being convicted earlier this year of 100 counts of possession of child pornography. Mumford worked for the Tampa Police Department from 1986 to 2015, when he retired as a Sergeant. He returned shortly after as a reserve officer. RELATED: Retired Tampa police officer arrested on 100 counts of child pornography, TPD chief says The backstory A tip in 2021 led investigators to search Mumford's devices. In 2022, they also searched his home and found more than 100 images of child pornography on his devices. "There are at least 162 identified, exploited children that were located in the images on his device," a prosecutor with the 13th Judicial Circuit said. At the time of his arrest, TPD confirmed that Mumford worked on the department's sex crimes unit from 2008-2009. On Friday, the state pointed to other evidence that was revealed during Mumford's trial earlier this year. Follow FOX 13 on YouTube "Also in his possession were numerous stories that did come out during the course of the trial that confirmed Mr. Mumford's wants, desires and, quite frankly, his like and interest in the child pornography that was located on his devices," the prosecutor said. The other side However, Mumford's attorney argued that this was all one incident, as opposed to many different incidents. "It is one criminal act of pointing and clicking and downloading a series of files," Mumford's attorney said. His attorney argued that the sentencing guidelines are disproportionate and incredibly harsh for the conduct that he was convicted of. READ: Grady Judd: 255 suspects, including 36 illegal immigrants, busted in operation 'Fool Around and Find Out' "These files were, whomever deleted them, were deleted in a 26-second period within the first six hours of the charging information, so to say that there is some evidence of multiple downloads or multiple images is contrary to the evidence that their expert agreed to," Mumford's attorney said. Mumford's attorney also pointed out that Mumford has no prior criminal record and has a record of service to the community. The prosecutor pointed to data shown during the trial, that there were multiple access dates and modify dates recorded on the device. What they're saying "There was no evidence that this was a one-time click," the prosecutor said. "There was no evidence that Mr. Mumford simply got onto Google, searched for "child pornography" and then, all of a sudden, all of these images magically appeared on his devices." When the judge sentenced Mumford, he shared some remarks of his own. "This was not just an accidental click on Google where these child pornography pictures showed up," Judge Robin Fuson said. "One does not find child pornography accidentally." The Source The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Kylie Jones. WATCH FOX 13 NEWS: STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app:Apple |Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
Ex-Tampa police sergeant gets 111 years in prison for child porn
A judge Friday sentenced a former Tampa police sergeant who once led the city's sex crimes squad to more than 100 years in prison for possessing child pornography. Circuit Judge Robin Fuson sentenced Paul Leo Mumford to nearly 112 years, a term was at the bottom of state sentencing guidelines but is still effectively a life sentence for the 64-year-old former cop. Dressed in a red jail suit, his salt-and-pepper hair disheveled, Mumford looked down at the table in front of him and shook his head after Fuson handed down the sentence. Mumford has been in jail since January, when a six-member jury found him guilty of having the materials. It was the sort of ending to a criminal case that law enforcement officers, like Mumford once was, would celebrate as a success. But now it was Mumford, who worked 29 years with the Tampa Police Department including 18 months as the sergeant in charge of the sex crimes unit, who faced justice. Mumford retired in 2015 but spent six more years as a reserve officer, and was still in that role when the child pornography investigation began in March 2021. It started after a chance encounter outside of Amalie Arena, according to court documents and testimony presented at trial. James Bowie, another former Tampa officer, was heading to a Tampa Bay Lightning game there and saw Mumford directing traffic. Mumford had been Bowie's sergeant when they were assigned to the street crimes squad. Bowie had since gone to work as an information security officer for Tampa General Hospital and had extensive training in computers. Mumford asked Bowie if he could help him recover some files stored on an external hard drive that had stopped working. As Bowie was working on the drive at his home, he clicked on a photo and up popped an image of a young girl engaging in sexual activity with a group of men. He opened another file and it, too, showed a child engaging in sexual activity. The next morning, Bowie got up, phoned an attorney and explained what had happened. The attorney arranged a meeting with Tampa police to turn over the hard drive and have Bowie give a statement. A computer expert with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was able to create an exact copy of the hard drive. A file held 100 sexualized images of children, pornographic cartoons showing children and pictures of children involved in sex acts with adults and other kids. Detectives first confronted Mumford in February 2022 at his South Tampa home, arriving with a search warrant. When they mentioned the hard drive, he said it had stopped working and that he'd been 'hacked.' When told about the images, he said he knew nothing about them. During the trial, Mumford's attorney, Chip Purcell, emphasized that the hard drive was so badly corrupted it took special tools for investigators to access the data. He also asserted that Mumford was not the only person who had access to the device. Police also found 61 Microsoft Word documents whose contents, prosecutors said, included erotic and sexually explicit stories involving children. In one story, the story's narrator described himself as an older man with gray hair, a retired cop who worked as a reserve officer at hockey games, twice married, whose wife had three sons — all details that matched Mumford. Mumford during trial took the witness stand and admitted he authored some, but not all, of the stories detectives found. He claimed they were a kind of therapy. From age 10 to 16, he said, he endured 'extreme sexual abuse' from 'a pedophile ring throughout the state of Florida.' 'I believed it would help me get over the continued effects of that abuse,' he said on the stand. Mumford denied knowing that the images were on the hard drive. He denied ever seeing them. During Friday's sentencing hearing, Purcell, said Mumford continues to maintain his innocence. Purcell argued that prosecutors should have filed a single count of child pornography possession, which would carry a maximum penalty of 15 years. Purcell noted Mumford did not have a prior criminal record. 'He has a stellar record of service to this community as a police officer,' Purcell said. Assistant State Attorney Jessica Couvertier, who prosecuted the case, noted that the charges Mumford faced were the same that his unit would have investigated. Couvertier told Fuson that the material on the hard drive contained images of of 'at least 162 identified exploited children' but that prosecutors filed 100 counts, which 'is uniform with how this jurisdiction operates.' Couvertier said that a representative from the Florida Department of Corrections met with Mumford before submitting a pre-sentencing investigation report. 'He continued to deny or take any responsibility for the charges that he was convicted of,' Couvertier said. 'He continued to try to insinuate that it was somebody else in the home that had located these images and placed those images on their hard drive.' Couvertier said the report found Mumford's actions to be 'a betrayal of the public trust' and warranted the maximum sentence of life in prison. Couvertier asked Fuson to hand down that life sentence. Fuson did not preside over Mumford's trial but said he read the trial transcripts. He also signed the search warrants to seize electronic devices found in Mumford's home. 'This was not just an accidental click on Google where these child pornography pictures showed up,' Fuson said. 'One does not find child pornography accidentally, one has to seek it out.' Fuson said there was no legal basis to depart from the lowest permissible prison sentence set by state guidelines.
Telegraph
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Mumford and Sons haven't lost their mojo post Winston Marshall's ‘cancellation'
Following a winning streak of three consecutive US chart-topping albums (and two in the UK), Marcus Mumford's folk-rock giants sit only behind Coldplay as Britain's biggest post-millennial band. It's been seven long years since their last outing: in the interim, country & western has helpfully come back into fashion, but that aside there's sufficient ammo on this fifth long-player to keep their band up top. Often cast as posh lads without the cares that affect us lesser mortals, Mumford & Sons have latterly suffered a minor mid-life crisis. In his lyrics for 2018's Delta, their California-born leader appeared to be battling depression, and that was before the strange mid-pandemic resignation of banjo player Winston Marshall – after endorsing a book which critiqued a far-Left protest organisation (and which saw him accused of promoting the far Right), Marshall left under a cloud. In the aftermath of a public severance, it's all too tempting to read those songs transmitting fury, accusation or regret as a direct comment. Certainly, Where It Belongs would potentially qualify: 'Are you really gone? Everybody keeps asking,' runs the opening couplet, against funereal piano chords and acoustic guitar picking, before this withering message: 'When you speak, do you think you could do it kindly?...And let your anger go to hell/Where it belongs?' This downbeat and rather bitter broadside holds a dominant place in Rushmere. The album also begins in a forlorn mood of defeat: 'In all my doubt/In all my weakness/Can you lead?' purrs the usually foghorn-voiced stadium belter in the first moments of Malibu. This, though, is an anthem of the Mumfords' post-Marshall rebuilding, and as Marcus sings more robustly about feeling 'the spirit move in me again', keyboardist Ben Lovett and bassist Ted Dwane chime in with rousing Crosby, Stills & Nash-style harmonies, before the tension bursts into the sort of shimmering feel-good chorus with which U2 and, yes, Coldplay fill the biggest arenas. Rushmere, the album, is named after a lake on Wimbledon Common, where Mumford, Lovett, Dwayne (and, presumably, Marshall) would hang out as kids (and across the road from which was Kings College School, attended by Lovett and Mumford). The title track urges a reconnection with those days' foundational dreams, to a fittingly expansive chorus: 'Don't you miss the breathlessness, the wildness in the eye,' sings Mumford, and beseeches his cohorts to 'light me up, I'm wasted in the dark' – again, to put Delta's 'black dog' behind him. Now 38, and married to British actor Carey Mulligan since 2012 (three kids and counting), Mumford is possessed of that all-pleasing gene which drives superhero rockers like Bruce Springsteen and Bono. He'd never let even an M&S record drag, so upbeat bangers arrive to balance out the downs – chest-beating, country-rocker Caroline veritably screams 'FM radio', while Truth channels all the rootsy oomph of Led Zeppelin III. Textured with synthy atmospherics more than old-time banjos, Rushmere was recorded with Grammy-laden Americana producer Dave Cobb, mostly in Nashville's fabled RCA Studio A, where he cut multi-platinum blockbusters with Kentucky star Chris Stapleton. Clearly, he has the knack for making an epic-scale, ultra-modern production feel intimate and enticing. Folky stand-outs like Monochrome cast a warm glow, and Carry On concludes with the expertly poignant wordplay and emotive refrain which will surely have Anglo-American audiences weeping. Five albums in, the Mumfords will, indeed, carry on. Best New Songs By Poppie Platt Ariana Grande, Twilight Zone Every pop star worth their salt has jumped on the 'deluxe' album bandwagon – Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter – and now Ariana Grande, fresh from touring the world on the Wicked-hype train, joins in the fun. This fun, flirty addition to last year's terrific Eternal Sunshine is an electro-drenched love song posing as the perfect vehicle for her unparalleled vocals, every breathy note disarmingly powerful. Dua Lipa and Troye Sivan, Physical Five years since lockdown means five years since Dua Lipa's chart-topping dancefloor (or, back then, bedroom) filler, Future Nostalgia. This bonus anniversary edition of smash-hit single Physical recruits pal and pop maverick Troye Sivan to inject some freshness. Jack Garratt, Catherine Wheel The former Brits Critics Choice Award winner is back with new music for the first time in five years and Catherine Wheel marks an exciting new direction: emotionally raw, soul-baring, but still hinging on catchy hooks and Mumford and Sons-esque thumping bass and choral backing. St Vincent, DOA St Vincent (Annie Clark) is one of the most singular voices in American indie-rock – endlessly inventive, always evolving. Her set at Glastonbury later this summer promises to be a highlight, so to prepare yourself check out this pulsating, synth-laden banger that should get the crowds at Worthy Farm dancing all night long.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Mumford & Sons stick to the same format on their latest album, Rushmere
'Most of the songs on this record, you could play on an acoustic guitar around a campfire,' says Marcus Mumford of his first album with Mumford & Sons in seven years. After the lo-fi confessional of his 2022 solo album, Self-Titled (on which he unpacked the fallout from sexual abuse he suffered as a child), fans might wonder if that means that his band's fifth album, Rushmere, might be a more muted affair. Perhaps it's an attempt to shuffle shyly back onto the stage after the band's banjo player, Winston Marshall, quit following controversy around his support for Unmasked (Andy Ngo's book decrying the leftist protest movement Antifa). But there's no sidestepping into the spotlight here. Many of these new songs follow the old Mumford & Sons format, swelling from soft-strummed intimacy to open-armed, stadium-sized stomps. The band's party trick is reflected here in rootsy production by Dave Cobb (known for his work with country and Americana stars including Chris Stapleton, John Prine and Brandi Carlile), along with the album's packaging. Rushmere is an ancient pond on London's Wimbledon Common where the band members used to hang out in their pre-fame days: ye olde cosy England. Vinyl copies, however, yawp wide to reveal a large black and white photograph of a much bigger, unnamed body of water in the US. They're at it from the off, with opener 'Malibu' gradually building from the hushed expressions of 'doubt' and 'weakness' over muffled guitar strings to expansive, drum-bolstered and banjo-gilded declarations of love: 'You are all I want, you're all I need!' The son of evangelical church leaders, Mumford has always used a holy model to offer up his whispered worries; here he sings of feeling 'a spirit move in me again'. They canter on from there into the exhilarating 'Caroline' which nods to Fleetwood Mac with its title, its high stakes romantic drama and urging to 'go your own way'. Glass is broken. Accusations are thrown ('You can say you're a saviour/ But I know you're a fraud') but somehow Mumford manages to maintain a tone of steady sincerity. Elsewhere on the album – recorded partly in Devon but also in Nashville and at Cobb's home in Savannah, Georgia – the band lean into Americana that suits their holy-rolling emotional tone. Standout song 'Truth' is driven by a ragged tumble of a blues riff; Mumford's raw vocals summon fire while his bandmates lay down soothing AM-retro backing vocals like blankets on dusty desert ground. Slower moments come with the delicate wash of 'Anchor' (with the singer lamenting a life 'on the run') and 'Monochrome', a prettily finger-picked, piano-sprinkled track with a Beatles 'Blackbird' lilt. Cobb is a massive, memorabilia-collecting superfan of the Fab Four, and seemingly couldn't wait to coax a little of that heritage out of the first British band he's worked with. No wheels have been reinvented on Rushmere. But it's a solidly crafted and comforting addition to the band's earthy, fraternal oeuvre. As Mumford sings on 'Blood on the Page', sometimes we all need a little 'stillness in the chaos'. Or, in their case, an excuse for a few more arena-sized campfire singalongs.
CNN
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Jimmy Fallon delivers comically long intro for Mumford & Sons after being roasted by band's frontman
Marcus Mumford, lead singer of the band Mumford & Sons, would like a little more respect from late night host Jimmy Fallon. Mumford appeared on Tuesday's episode of 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' and, before Mumford & Sons performed, he playfully complained about how basic Fallon's introduction of them was during the 'SNL' 50th anniversary 'Homecoming Concert' in February. The singer said that he and the band have known Fallon for 'a very long time' and that they expected him to introduce them saying something 'really sweet,' or talk about some of their accomplishments as a group or with regard to their involvement with 'SNL.' Instead, much to Mumford's chagrin, Fallon's introduction at the time was exceedingly brief: 'Ladies and gentleman, Mumford & Sons.' On his show this week, Fallon claimed that he did originally have a heartfelt speech prepared for Mumford & Sons' introduction and 'SNL' creator Lorne Micheals nixed it, but Mumford wasn't buying it. 'You totally did them for other artists,' He said, laughing. 'You were wanging on about (Lady) Gaga!' Later on in the show this week, Fallon got a redo when he made an epic three-and-a-half minute speech before the band's performance. Fallon dove into Mumford & Sons' history as a band, dating back to their first Grammy wins and their first appearance at the Glastonbury Festival. He also spoke about all three members of the band, including Mumford, Ted Duane and Ben Lovett, even going into detail about their respective personal hobbies beyond music. 'As we all know, he's a total foodie,' Fallon said of Lovett. He then went on about the band's lyrical content having strong 'literary influences' and, of course, about their wardrobe, describing their style as a 'classic, slightly rugged, timeless esthetic, often featuring earthy tones, natural fabrics and a mix of traditional and modern elements.' The band were seen laughing several times while on stage waiting for Fallon to finish his lengthy introduction.
