A San Diego federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a former Navy detective and El Cajon police officer to 20 years in prison in a child sex-exploitation case, telling Jonathan Christopher LaRoche that he would have sentenced him to a longer term if the law did not cap his punishment at two decades. “Y our actions here were reprehensible,” U.S. District Judge James Simmons told LaRoche, also a Marine Corps veteran. “Frankly, 20 years is not enough time.” LaRoche, 42, pleaded guilty last year to a charge of conspiracy to distribute child sex abuse material. In his plea agreement, he admitted that he had created child sex abuse images with a pre-pubescent victim, shared those images online and was having online conversations about creating more explicit images with his victim. He also admitted to possessing other child sex abuse images. At the time of his arrest last year in the sex-abuse case, LaRoche was just weeks away from reporting to federal prison in a different case in which he had pleaded guilty to choking a handcuffed sailor unconscious at Naval Base San Diego while working as a detective for the Department of the Navy’s Criminal Investigations Division. In that case, LaRoche also pleaded guilty to making false statements under penalty of perjury when he lied on his Navy application about his multiple uses of excessive force while working for the El Cajon Police Department. In addition to his 20-year sentence, which will run concurrently with his 15-month sentence in the previous case, the judge on Tuesday imposed a 15-year term of supervised release once LaRoche is out of prison. A prosecutor had asked that he be subjected to a lifetime of supervised release once his prison term ends. “Mr. LaRoche has shown he can’t function in society without being watched,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Griffith told the judge. Griffith noted in sentencing documents that at the time of the sex crime, LaRoche was still a detective for the Navy and had sworn an oath to uphold the law. “And yet, he spent months bragging about grooming and sexually exploiting (the victim),” Griffith wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “Defendant, while a law enforcement officer, sought advice on how to further sexually exploit (the victim) for his own sexual gratification and for the ability to make money.” LaRoche and his attorney asked for a 15-year sentence, arguing in part that prison will be harder for LaRoche than most inmates. “As a former law enforcement officer and now convicted sex offender, his time in prison is going to be extraordinarily difficult,” his attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “He will most likely be placed in administrative segregation for his own safety for the duration of his entire sentence. He will be isolated, and for the times when he is not, he will be in constant fear of attack.” Simmons acknowledged that argument, but said it didn’t warrant mitigation given that LaRoche’s “conduct was so reprehensible.” Dressed in orange prison clothing, LaRoche sat slumped over and crying for most of Tuesday’s hearing. Given a chance to address the court, he spoke for about 15 minutes, begging the victim’s mother for forgiveness and the judge for mercy. “I’m beyond horrified with myself,” LaRoche said. He told Simmons that he grew up Christian but “got away from it for a long time.” He said he had post-traumatic stress disorder from his time as a Marine, and that he turned to alcohol and online pornography to numb himself. He said he spiraled mentally and was too weak to ask for help. “I’m not a monster sitting here before you,” LaRoche told the judge. “I will spend the rest of my life making amends and trying to fix what I have broken.” Simmons seemed unconvinced by LaRoche’s pleas for mercy and a second chance. “Your second chance is that you’re not getting a life sentence,” the judge said. Griffith, the prosecutor, described LaRoche as a “documented liar,” citing his previous case, while telling the judge that “alcohol and PTSD don’t make you molest a child.” Simmons agreed, noting that he’d never before heard post-traumatic stress disorder cited as an excuse for child molestation. He acknowledged that LaRoche suffered “invisible wounds” from his military service, but noted that he has now inflicted invisible mental wounds on his victim. According to court documents in the case, law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands identified LaRoche after obtaining a copy of the server for a dark web email provider that authorities described as a place “where child sex abuse material was being shared and distributed.” One user of that email service purported to run a business that claimed to offer members tens of thousands of dollars or more in exchange for original images and videos depicting child sex abuse with a system for members to request and commission specific images, according to a search warrant. In his plea agreement, LaRoche admitted to communicating with that user and stating that he was “interested in becoming a member and wanted to produce child sex abuse material with a minor child.” According to his plea agreement, he also wrote in the online communications that he was sexually abusing a victim “and wanted to meet up with other children for sex.” He also admitted in the plea agreement that he’d previously created at least 20 images of the victim, that he was willing to create more images, that he bought a specific clothing item for the victim that he was told to purchase and that he accepted a request from another member for specific images. In court Tuesday, the prosecutor noted that the images showed the victim’s face, while the judge noted that Internet users had been able to identify the victim and the victim’s mother. Simmons said it’s not uncommon for such victims to be contacted years later in adulthood, noting the lasting impact this will have on the victim’s life. “These images will forever be out there,” the judge said. ...read more read less