GAINESVILLE -- A former Forsyth County Sheriff's deputy has been convicted on federal child pornography charges.

A jury found Milton Scott Pruitt, 41, guilty Wednesday on one count each of knowingly receiving child pornography on his county-issued laptop computer and knowingly receiving child pornography on his home computer.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before returning with a verdict late Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Pruitt was found not guilty on one count of knowingly possessing child pornography on his home computer.

Bill McKenney, one of two attorneys who represented Pruitt, said the verdict was inconsistent.

"We'll look at the appeal issues after sentencing," McKenney said.

Sentencing for Pruitt, who was fired from the department in 2007 and later ran unsuccessfully for sheriff last year, is scheduled for 10 a.m. Oct. 8.

He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each of the two counts, and faces a mandatory five years in prison on each count

A sobbing Pruitt hugged his wife, Kim, before a U.S. Marshal took him into federal custody.

Pruitt was indicted on the federal charges in August 2008. The federal trial began Monday.

Witnesses testified that the charges stemmed from the April 2007 discovery that Pruitt had used his county-issued account on a work laptop computer to access images of child pornography in another investigator's files.

A month later, authorities found images of child pornography on his home computer, as well as Web sites with child pornography-related names and questionable Internet searches for pictures of naked children and teens.

Questions also were raised about a media storage device that appeared to have been used on both the laptop and Pruitt's home computer. That device was never found and Pruitt never turned it in.

In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Steinberg asked the jury for a guilty verdict. She said the case was a search for the truth, not excuses.

"And the truth in this case is the defendant was 'just curious.' Just curious means just guilty," she said.

She contended that Pruitt, then a sergeant supervising other patrol deputies, was the only person who had access to his county-issued laptop and that he had used it to open 10 images of child pornography kept in another investigator's case file.

She said the defense tried to provide the excuse that Pruitt shouldn't have had access to the files in the first place. "Just because a police officer has access to contraband, does that mean you're allowed to take it?"

McKenney closed by telling jurors that a guilty verdict would condone the behavior of investigators in the case.

"If you approve of this investigation, if you approve of the manner in which this was done, then we don't have much of a chance in this case," McKenney said.

He argued that Pruitt did not exhibit behavior typical of someone who likes child pornography.

"There was absolutely no evidence by the government or us that Scott Pruitt ever shared these, downloaded, made videos," he said.

He also questioned why Pruitt would willingly have turned over his home computer to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation if he had known there was child pornography on it.

According to testimony from witnesses for both sides, the images were found in the computer's unallocated space, which holds deleted images that could have come from pop-ups, viruses or hacking.

There were no dates or times associated with the images.

He said the investigation never excluded Pruitt's then fiance, Kim McAfee, and never fully eliminated his previous live-in girlfriend Jamie Sudduth, who also had an account on Pruitt's computer.

After the verdict was delivered, McKenney polled the jury.

All seven women and five men answered yes when asked if the verdict published was their verdict, if it was still their verdict and if it was freely and voluntarily entered.

Commenting on the verdict, U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias said in a statement that a person entrusted with protecting the public's safety is the "last person we would expect to exploit children."

"Instead of upholding the law as he was sworn to do, this defendant trampled the law and victimized innocent children when he used a police computer and his personal computer to view child pornography," Nahmias said.

Said Georgia Bureau of Investigtion Director Vernon Keenan: "It is truly sad when a law enforcement officer uses county property to access such materials, and in this case, child pornography was also found on his home computer."