A 53-year-old man was sentenced Thursday on child pornography charges involving underage girls in his Johns Creek neighborhood.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, Dirk LaPaglia received a sentence of six years in federal prison to be followed by 10 years of supervised release.

Senior U.S. District Judge Orinda D. Evans also ordered LaPaglia to undergo addiction therapy and treatment as available, as well as register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

LaPaglia pleaded guilty to the charges on Oct. 6.

According to court documents, LaPaglia manufactured hundreds of sexually explicit images of more than two dozen underage girls from his neighborhood. He reportedly superimposed photos of their faces onto pornographic images.

U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates was pleased with the outcome of the case.

“This defendant’s disturbing criminal acts destroyed an entire community’s sense of trust,” Yates said in a statement.

“As was made clear in court … his victims remain scared and confused. They — and we — cannot understand why a father and friend from their neighborhood would do this to them and their families.”

She added that they also worry about the possible impact of the case on their future.

Brian D. Lamkin, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Atlanta Field Office, said in a statement that the case “makes it clear that our communities must remain vigilant as we protect our children from those who would do them harm.”

“This defendant was literally living among those whom he chose to exploit and violate by taking such images of them for his own gratification,” he said.

According to Yates, the charges and court documents, the case began in April 2011, when Johns Creek authorities investigated a series of stalking incidents.

Neighborhood residents, including at least one minor, had reported receiving anonymous packages containing lingerie and letters describing sexual encounters involving adults and children in the community.

LaPaglia ultimately admitted sending the parcels to girls and women in the neighborhood.

When authorities later searched his home they found additional sexually explicit letters, along with a cache of photos that LaPaglia had created by combining photos of neighborhood women and girls with pornographic images. 

On his computer, they found more than 600 images depicting the faces/upper torsos of neighborhood girls morphed onto the naked bodies of other women in various explicit sex acts.