Survivor star Mike Skupin is jailed for one year over sick child abuse images found on his computer

AN ex-Survivor contestant has been sentenced to at least a year in prison for possessing sick child abuse images.

Michael Skupin appeared in Oakland County court in suburban Detroit where he was sentenced for having the indecent images on his computer.

He begged for mercy from the judge and said he's "deeply sorry" but denied downloading the photos on his laptop.

In a separate case, he was placed on probation and ordered to pay $31,800 to victims of a financial scheme.

During that investigation, authorities found child porn on Skupin's laptop.

He was convicted in November.

Skupin will be eligible for parole after a year with the longest he can be kept in prison being four years.

The 54-year-old apologised to the judge before he was sentenced telling the court: “I never, ever said who, what, when, where, why these pictures were on there or viewed, I just maintained that I didn’t do it.

"I wasn’t pointing the finger at anybody, there was hundreds of people that use these computers.

“I have 11 children that I’m raising and four of them are at home minors and four of them are in college.

"I have about $1,000 a month obligation toward child support and there’s so much fallout that would result in me going away.

"I would just ask that in order to maintain the quality of my children’s lives, there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do that you guys ask me to do. I just ask for the mercy of the court.”

The Michigan Attorney General's Office said that Skupin must register as a sex offender when he is released from prison and will be banned from using a computer "outside of work purposes".

In 2001, Skupin had to be evacuated from the "Survivor II: The Australian Outback" after falling into a campfire, but he returned for "Survivor: Philippines" in 2012.