A 54-year-old Toppenish man will spend 96 months in Federal prison for his role in distributing child pornography.
The man admitted to Federal authorities he’d been involved in it for 30 years
Robert Ray Root was arrested in January of 2022 following a sting operation that included work from Federal agents, the Yakima Police Department, and the Southeast Regional ICAC Task Force, consisting of the Richland and Kennewick Police Departments.
Authorities did not elaborate about what led to them to investigate Root.
An undercover agent downloaded porn provided by Root, the downloads were done in October and November of 2021. According to the US District Attorney’s Office for Eastern Washington:
“In January 2022, agents executed a search warrant at Root’s home and seized several electronic devices, including a computer with thousands of child pornography images and more than 100 videos. In addition to admitting the decades’ long interest in and trading of child pornography, Root also admitted to investigators that he had sexually abused a young girl several years earlier.”
Besides the 8 years in Federal Prison, Root will receive ten years of supervised probation on his release, and he will be required to pay $21,000 in restitution to 7 victims of his crimes.
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