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Worcester man sentenced for plotting to abduct, eat children in 2013 asks for release due to virus

A Worcester man serving out his nearly 27-year prison sentence for plotting to eat children in his homemade torture dungeon is asking to be released due to his risk for contracting COVID-19.

Geoffrey Portway is currently being held in a federal prison in Virginia. He was sentenced in 2013 to just over 26 years in prison after police raided his Beechmont Street home for child pornography and discovered a dungeon in his basement.

Prosecutors alleged Portway, who was charged as part of an international child porn investigation, spent 10 years accumulating a collection of images and soliciting assistance from an online partner in Kansas to abduct a child for him. Authorities also said Portway planned to rape, torture, murder, and cannibalize young children in the dungeon.

Portway, who pleaded guilty in May 2013 to solicitation of child kidnapping and charges of possession and distribution of child pornography, is asking for compassionate release so he can return to England, where he’s from.

In a handwritten motion, Portway says his obesity puts him at “a higher risk of serious complications” from COVID-19.


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