Former Tri-Cities Radio DJ Pleads Guilty to Child Porn Charges

A former disc jockey has pleaded guilty after being arrested last year on child pornography charges.

James LaPlante, who worked in the Tri-Cities under the air name of Jim O’Brien, has been working as a morning jock in Anchorage, Alaska under the name of Jimmy O’Brien for KASH-FM.  He had been the program director of the station since 2000.

Anchorage police were tipped off to search his computer after Instagram flagged 13 pictures on his account of sexual exploitation of children. A search of his computer at home revealed more than 1,000 images related to child pornography. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children notified Anchorage police when Instagram notified them an Anchorage-based user had uploaded 13 images of child pornography. This information was also reported by the website Media Confidential.

LaPlante pleaded guilty to a consolidated count of distribution of child pornography and faces two to 12 years in prison. He will also be required to register as a known sex offender for the next 15 years.

The news came as a shock to a number of longtime radio people in the Mid-Columbia, as many knew and some had worked with LaPlante during his time there.

He worked for now-defunct OK-95 (now a country station) as well as other stations in the region during the late 1980s and '90s. He was a well-known figure on the airwaves for a number of years.

Story from John McKay in Tri Cites