As reported by the Courthouse News Service, a 28 year-old man has been sentenced to 120 years in federal prison after pleading guilty not to only raping a 4 year-old boy he had been employed to babysit, but also for exposing the child to "a serious communicable disease" as the man is HIV-positive.
The 4th Circuit ruled that J.C. serve his 12-decade long sentence in federal prison, and, according to the Bureau of Prison Records, he is now behind bars in the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson.
The court decision never included that J.C. was afflicted with HIV, instead his illness was described as "a grave medical condition." According to the Northern Virginia Daily J.C. had HIV since his birth.
Allegedly the victim has not contracted J.C.'s disease.
J.C. was arrested in 2012 following a police search of his home – where several images and videos were discovered that showed him sexually abusing young children.
After his arrest J.C. confessed to using a peer-to-peer network in to share his pornography. He also admitted to more serious crimes: he sexually molested a four-year old boy on four separate occasions and recorded his actions in both photographs and videos.
The court ruling states that J.C. also admitted that he was aware that his disease could be transmitted to his victim.
J.C. pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a child for the purpose of producing child pornography, three counts. He also pleaded guilty to transporting child pornography and possessing child pornography, one count each.
Though a presentence report noted that this was J.C.'s first conviction, the gravity of his crimes warranted an initial advisory guideline term of a lifetime sentence. In Harrisonburg, U.S. Judge Michael Urbanski handed down the maximum sentence for each count, which resulted in the 120-year sentence, because none of the charges warranted a lifetime prison sentence.
Though J.C. has a shortened life expectancy his sentence was not reduced by the judge or a three-judge panel of the appeals court. According to the panel the sentence did not violate the Eight Amendment that forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
Judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote, "Not only did (J.C.) possess large quantities of child pornography that he downloaded and shared on the Internet, fueling the public consumption of materials harmful to children, but he also created depictions of his own sexual exploitation, molestation, and abuse of a 4-year-old child. To make matters worse (J.C.) was aware that his sexual contact with the child could have caused the child to contract (J.C.'s) serious communicable disease."
The ruling noted that other courts had made similar judgments – ordering lifetime prison sentences in cases of child pornography. The only instances the court found that a lifetime sentence wasn't ordered was in cases involving juvenile offenders.
In regards to J.C.'s age Judge Keenan wrote, "To the extent that this 28-year-old defendant argues that his developmental immaturity categorically requires that he be treated more leniently as a juvenile, we reject that argument at the outset given the complete lack of evidence in the record regarding any national consensus about how immature adults should be sentenced for child pornography crimes."
Whatever criminal charges you face contact a criminal defense attorney for help right away. You must begin working on your defense with an attorney now as the prosecution is mounting their case against you.
