Former Stillwater Mayor Admits Child Porn Charges

Former Stillwater Village Mayor Rick W. Nelson 62, pleaded guilty to felony counts of child pornography. He admitted to knowingly having and accessing images of children less than 16 years of age engaged in sexual conduct in August 2017. He faces 5 to 15 years in state prison and must to register as a sex offender.

Nelson was arrested last year after an investigation by a State Police Computer Crime Unit found a Stillwater IP address was being used to download child pornography. This is the fifth time in the last 42 years that the former Mayor has been accused of victimizing children or teenagers. Despite his 2015 election, Nelson faced three separate sex crime cases between 1975 and 1986 – with one of the latter cases including allegations of rape and sodomy. And in 1982, the former Mayor was accused of inappropriate behavior toward a 5-year-old on the school bus, where he was a bus driver.

Nelson, a Democrat, was elected Mayor of the village in early 2015, defeating a 23-year incumbent for the right to lead the village of about 1,700 inhabitants on the Hudson River.

Stillwater Mayor Frank Tatum called the situation "tragic."

"The village want to move past this," Tatum said. "There are no good outcomes to any of this."

Nelson will be sentenced June 19.