Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan this week sentenced Samuel McCormick to 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay a $3,500 fine for his March conviction of knowingly possessing obscene matter containing visual depictions of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts.

McC-ormick, a former Florala police officer, was charged in 2007 when his girlfriend, also a former Florala police officer, reported to law enforcement she had found computer discs containing sexually explicit images of naked children. She turned the disks over to then-Florala Police Chief Bruce Maddox, whose department conducted the subsequent investigation.

A Covington County jury found him guilty last month, despite his defense’s argument that the images in question were on disks from he was on active duty in Afghanistan, and that he had no knowledge of them.

His attorney, Riley Powell, has given verbal notice of his client’s intent to appeal, and confirmed Wednesday that he will move forward with the appeal.

McKathan’s order was a split sentence, requiring McCormick to serve a full two-and-a-half years, and remain on probation for the duration of his 10-year sentence. McKathan denied McCormick’s request for an appeals bond.