RAAF serviceman jailed for international child sexual abuse offences
In short:
A member of the Royal Australian Air force has been sentenced for 18 child sex offences against victims from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
His arrest followed a police investigation earlier this year that was initiated by a tip-off from officers in New Jersey in the US.
What's next?
The man's lawyer says there is no plan to appeal the sentence. He will be eligible for parole in 2029.
A former member of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has been sentenced to seven years' jail for online child abuse offences against 10 girls in Australia and two other countries.
Warning: This story contains details of child sexual abuse that may distress some readers.
The man, known as BH for legal reasons, was arrested on March 25, 2024 at a caravan park on the New South Wales Mid North Coast.
The arrest followed a NSW Police investigation that stemmed from a tip-off from the New Jersey State Police in the United States.
On January 29, 2024 New Jersey State Police detectives conducted an operation in which an officer posed as a 13-year-old girl online and exchanged text messages with BH on KIK Messenger.
BH told the undercover officer that he was based in Australia.
NSW Police then executed a warrant at the caravan park.
Police arrested the man at a caravan park on the Mid North Coast. (Supplied: NSW Police)
In May BH pleaded guilty to 18 offences, including procuring a child for sexual activity outside Australia, multiple counts of using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material and multiple counts of possessing child abuse material between March 2023 and February 2024.
During sentencing in the NSW District Court at Sydney's Downing Centre on Friday Judge Craig Everson SC told the court that BH was a serving member of the RAAF at the time of his arrest.
The court heard BH assisted police with their inquiries and that further investigations revealed he had committed acts against 10 girls.
The court heard BH made admissions and denials to police about the use of KIK Messenger to receive or view child sex abuse material.
"Denies screenshotting or sending — those were both lies," the court heard.
International offending
Agreed facts tendered in court stated that multiple devices contained more than 800 videos and images of prepubescent girls or boys either exposing themselves and/or engaging in sexual acts with adults.
Judge Everson detailed BH's offending against 10 victims — one in Australia, three in the United Kingdom and the remainder from the US.
He told the court BH had offered a 12-year-old girl from America $500 to send nude photos of herself via Snapchat.
BH told the ABC through a statement issued by his lawyer, James Janke, that he was extremely remorseful for his actions.
"I'm sorry to those that I have harmed and their families," the statement said.
"I am grateful to the court for its thorough consideration of the matter and would now like to get on with paying my debt to society."
Mr Janke said BH would not appeal his sentence.
Judge Everson sentenced BH to serve at least five years behind bars, backdated to March 25, 2024.
He will be eligible for parole in 2029.
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Former JBLM soldier sentenced for child sex abuse, threatening kids into silence
A former soldier previously stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing four children between ages 3 and 11 and threatening them so they would keep quiet.
Jonathan Gentry, 36, pleaded guilty in July to three counts of abusive sexual contact with a minor and one count of sexual abuse of a minor for acts that occurred from 2010 to 2014. He was indicted in December.
Prosecutors said Gentry was previously arrested by military police in 2013 for sexually touching a 13-year-old girl and her friend. Gentry was court-martialed and sentenced to two years in military prison. Years later, four other children who were left in his care came forward about what prosecutors called “horrific sexual abuse.”
“The victims were helpless children,” Judge David G. Estudillo said at Gentry’s sentencing hearing in Tacoma. “You were the monster that was living with them. You scarred these victims for the rest of their lives.”
One victim who prosecutors said was repeatedly raped by Gentry when they were between 5 and 9 years old estimated that the abuse took place almost daily until they graduated kindergarten. Two other victims reported that Gentry threatened to harm or kill their families if they didn’t do what he said.
Gentry’s appointed defense attorney, Lance Hester, requested that his client receive no further period of incarceration while remaining on a lengthy term of supervised release. The attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum that such a sentence would recognize Gentry’s insistence that the victims avoid the rigors of participating in a trial and the “extreme lapse in time” from when the conduct occurred to when his accusers made their reports.
In a letter to the judge, Gentry said he accepted full responsibility for the actions he was accused of and said that since his previous incarceration he has worked to build a new life. He said the last 10 years had shown that he was not a danger to the community or the victims.
“I also accept responsibility for becoming part of their lives without being able to live up to the responsibilities of a young adult,” Gentry wrote. “I failed to provide the safe space those children needed to grow, learn, and become healthy members of society. Instead, by my choices, I led them onto a more difficult path.”
Hester said Gentry joined the Army after he was married, and he and his wife had a daughter in 2010. Gentry was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, where Hester said Gentry was exposed to dangerous and stressful conditions. When he returned to his home on JBLM, the attorney said, Gentry found that his wife had let the house become filthy, and Child Protective Services contacted her over the conditions and their children’s well-being.
Gentry and his wife began drinking heavily, according to Hester, which frequently resulted in Gentry blacking out. He was also depressed and suicidal, and when Gentry was accused of molesting a girl in 2013, Hester said, Gentry didn’t fight the accusations because he knew he had frequent blackouts and he didn’t want to put his family through trauma.
Prosecutors said neither the difficulties Gentry experienced in childhood nor his time out of custody without new criminal charges could excuse the suffering he inflicted on his victims. They said the delay in catching him doesn’t undermine the damage he caused or take away the fact he is a “prolific child pedophile with at least six known victims.”
“Defense will likely argue for a lower sentence because Gentry has been in the community allegedly “crime free,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “But the truth is, we have no idea whether Gentry has other victims considering he successfully scared at least these four victims into silence for over ten years.”
In one 2013 incident, court records described Gentry providing alcohol to a girl and one of the victims. After they went to bed, Gentry carried the victim from the bedroom to the living room, where he forced alcohol down her throat, sexually assaulted the victim and stopped them from trying to crawl away from him to continue molesting them.
Prosecutors said the sexual abuse had a profound and lasting effect on the victims. One reportedly described deep anxiety, difficulty trusting people and ongoing night terrors.
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