Huston Huddleston, the Los Angeles man who years ago announced that he had "saved the bridge" of a discarded Enterprise-D touring set, has now pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. The other criminal charges pending against him were dismissed during a Wednesday court hearing.
Huddleston was sentenced to time served (63 days in custody, plus 63 days for good behavior), three years probation, and he now has to register as a sex offender beginning in September 2018.
The full docket was provided to Ars by Crystal House, a former volunteer who had worked with Huddleston. She had been one of a handful of people who reported him to authorities, and was ready to testify against him had there been a trial.
Huddleston was arrested in April 2018, but it was not reported until just last month.
To be clear, the Next Generation-era bridge Huddleston found some publicity around is not the one that was used in the filming of the famed television show.
As Ars previously reported, Huddleston saved what was left of the touring bridge before its pending trip to the junkyard in December 2011. He paid nothing for the props—just $7,000 to have the bridge shipped from Long Beach to his home in Sherman Oaks, 40 miles north.
As a fan, Huddleston previously collected various Star Trek items, notably paying $500 each for bridge pieces like the Riker and Troi chairs from Star Trek: The Experience before other items were auctioned in 2010, two years after the venue closed down.
In 2014, Huddleston expanded his aims and announced fundraising for an ambitious museum that aimed to house not only the famed Star Trek bridge, but to also host other iconic science fiction and horror film sets and props. More recently, in 2017, Huddleston took possession of a donated wax version of the entire Original Series-era crew.
However, the overall museum efforts do not appear to have substantially advanced in the intervening four years since the initiative was announced. Huddleston's mother, Nancy, is a board member of the non-profit group, known as the New Starship Foundation, that worked toward a museum. She has declined to respond to Ars' questions.
Huddlestons efforts to create a Hollywood Sci-Fi Museum and Hollywood Horror Museum now appear to be dead in the water.
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Ars Technica
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