Last Updated on February 13, 2022 8:41 am
A former Deputy in Tennessee has been sentenced to 108 months in prison on transportation of child pornography charges.
James Eugene Patty, Jr., 49, of Maryville, Tennessee, was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release and to register as a sex offender. U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger handed down the sentence on Tuesday.
According to filed court documents and court proceedings, in September 2016, law enforcement located an online advertisement soliciting a partner to engage in sexual conduct and advertising “the younger the better.” Posing as a 14-year-old female, a law enforcement officer responded to the ad, and proceeded to engage in multiple exchanges with Patty, which were sexual in nature. Court records show that, over the course of the online exchanges, Patty told the “minor” that he was interested in bondage, and sent the “minor” sexual images that depicted bondage.
According to court records, after exchanging multiple online and text messages, Patty was arrested by law enforcement on October 5, 2016, after he drove from Tennessee to Asheville to meet the minor female. At the time of his arrest, Patty was a sheriff deputy with the Blount County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement found child pornography images in Patty’s cellular phone, including the images he had transmitted to the “minor.”
Patty pleaded guilty to one count of transportation of child pornography. He is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.
U.S. Attorney R. Andrew Murray thanked the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Boone Police Department and the Asheville Police Department for their investigation.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville prosecuted both cases.
