Child porn videos land man in jail for 16 months
(CNS): A 38-year-old man from the Dominican Republic was jailed for 16 months in Summary Court Monday for possessing around 11 videos depicting child pornography that he had downloaded from the internet. Jamie Diaz Vargas admitted four counts of possessing child pornography and one charge of accessing it. The material was explicit and involved children as young as eight. The magistrate said the videos were “vile, immoral and illegal”, as he pointed to the child abuse carried out by the makers of such material and added that those who view it encouraged that abuse.
As he handed down his sentence, Magistrate Valdis Foldats described the content on just one of the videos from the police record and said he hoped everyone in the court felt as uncomfortable hearing the details as he did reading it.
The videos were found on Vargas’ computer after he was arrested at the airport as he returned to Cayman from overseas, which was part of a police operation that led to a search at his home. The police found three videos on the laptop and a forensic search turned up several more in deleted files and enabled them to confirm that Vargas had searched specifically for sex videos involving children.
The videos ranged in length from almost a half hour to just a few minutes but all involved young girls engaging in explicit sexual acts with older men and in one case a boy with several young girls.
The magistrate found that Vargas had viewed the “depraved material” intentionally, as he said titles of the films left no doubt about what they were as. He pointed to a ruling in a Canadian case, which he said captured the proper approach and principles that needed to be born in mind when sentencing for such offences.
Foldats said there was a need to send a message in no uncertain terms that at the root of all child pornography offences is the sexual abuse and exploitation of the children by those who produce the material.
He said pornography captures the images of that actual abuse and those who view child pornography encourage the abuse of children by providing the audience or market. The simple possession of child pornography must be treated as a serious offence, he said, because if the courts can deter the viewers, it can have an impact on reducing the amount of pornography made.
He said the depraved individuals who perpetrate this horrific abuse on innocent children get a kick out of recording the abuse and having others look at it, and given the advances in technology it was all too easy for “these monsters to spread their filth to other depraved people” and inflict further child abuse.
With no precedents in the Cayman Islands for cases of possession without any offending with children, Foldats based his sentencing on the UK guidelines, his awareness of the Cayman Constitution and the need to protect children, as well as the need to deter, denounce and condemn such activities. But he said he hoped that the Grand Court would soon issue a clear statement of principle for such cases as more were expected to come before the courts.
The magistrate said that an immediate term of imprisonment should be imposed, and despite an assessment of Vargas by the probation service that he was at low risk of re-offending and could be suitable for a community-based punishment, he handed down a two-year sentence, which was discounted by a third for Vargas’ early admissions and formal guilty pleas to all five counts.
Foldats also ordered the destruction of the material, as he remanded Vargas into custody to begin serving his 16-month term.
Those children were abused and he was watching the abuse and getting off on it. It’s terrible that he only got 16 months. He enjoyed watching children get abused and if he can bare to even watch it he is as bad as the people who are filming it. It breaks my heart to think about those poor children. He should have got at least 5 years and then put on the sex offenders register AT LEAST!
Why does it always come down to Nationality ? There has been more than enough Caymanian males who have molested their own daughters. No matter where they come from there are child molesters everywhere. No need to bring Nationality into it when the crime should be enough to outrage anyone.
You couldnt say better than that!
Commentators are racists, black lives matter.
If he was a caymanian he would have get life. Need another Ivan (Storm) on this island.
Your comment is so beyond stupid!!
Scumbag should have received a much harsher sentence. Sixteen months is a joke!
All this sickos, scumbags wash up on Cayman Island shores. Going forward we need to take everything of value from them as compensation, deport and then blacklist them by sending all countries their fingerprints and other info for their database. Scumbags like these should be confined to their country of origin.
Bodden Town?
You get more time for using drugs. Sad.
you get more drugs by doing time.
16 months is most too lenient. We here in the Cayman Islands must demand that sentences for such criminal activity be increased and thus maybe we will see less of such crimes in our communities. DEPORTATION should also be in order here.
Wonder if they checked into what contacts Mr. Vargas had with juveniles here? What was his employment? Was he employed as a coach, a teacher or social worker? What wasn’t he deported?
or an accountant, lawyer, policeman, doctor, nurse, surgeon?
The punishments for these crimes against children is a JOKE! I am so disheartened to know the innocent children of our country are not being protected.
The probation unit thought he should have community based punishment? WTF?
And why no deportation order?
I’m shocked at the assessment of the probation service. They really want him in the community? As for deportation – he probably was one of the hundreds who got status with no character check.
So what if he got granted status? It can be revoked!
Not if granted by cabinet, AKA the McKeeva grants
Deportation! It matters not if he got status in 2003 or not. If he got status it does not give him he right to stay here if he has committed a heinous crime after his sentence. Status can be revoked in this and many other cases our leaders just have to get it done. Unfortunately we are stuck with our own scumbags but for other country scum we don’t need or want them here.
16 months…..says a lot doesn’t it.
SMH.
oooo ooooo…..i bet he wont do that again……
Only 16 months?!?! He should have gotten 16 years!! Wtf is this justice system coming too?I hope he gets deported after he gets out.