The sentencing of David Yellen, a youth gymnastics photographer from Royal Oak convicted of distributing child pornography, was postponed Friday to determine whether gymnasts will be allowed to speak in federal court.
A last-minute dispute over who qualifies as a victim delayed until Nov. 22 punishment for Yellen, who prosecutors say also spent two decades taking pictures of the bare feet and genital areas of approximately 1,100 children in leotards.
The sentencing by Chief U.S. District Judge Sean Cox was postponed more than one year after Yellen, 59, was arrested. The arrest and criminal case raised fears and concerns within a gymnastics community already reeling from crimes committed by former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.
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The photos of gymnasts' clothed genital areas are not considered child pornography, his lawyer, Margaret Sind Raben, said.
"They are considered child erotica," Raben wrote in an email to The Detroit News. "In the U.S., it is not a crime to possess/distribute child erotica. The (government) knows the difference.
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Yellen was portrayed by prosecutors as a predator with a foot fetish who victimized children as young as 3 years old in the nation’s gymnastics community at the same time as Nassar.