A former West Covina resident was sentenced Monday to 25 years behind bars for creating and publishing an advertisement that sought to exchange sexually explicit images of children on a Russian photo-sharing website frequently used to trade child pornography.
Christopher Clay Roman-Tuttle, who goes by the name Christopher Clay Tuttle, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to register as a sex offender and to be subject to lifetime supervised release once he is out of federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Roman-Tuttle, now of Spokane, Washington, pleaded guilty in March to one count of advertising child pornography, which carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Roman-Tuttle, 33, admitted in his plea agreement that in March 2015, he created an account with a Russian photo-sharing website and used it to knowingly publish an advertisement seeking to receive, exchange and distribute child porn.
He also acknowledged posting two photo albums: one that featured non-pornographic images of a minor known to him, and one password-protected album that contained pornographic images of unknown child victims. He advertised the images by posting a statement, which read, in part, that a youngster "in diapers" would be "cool," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
In response to Roman-Tuttle's ad, he received numerous emails over the course of two days from dozens of individuals seeking to exchange child porn with him, his plea agreement states. Roman-Tuttle also admitted to sending and receiving images and videos of child porn to many of those individuals, at times requesting videos depicting girls between 5 and 8 years old.
In other emails, Roman-Tuttle described his desire to sexually abuse children, including the minor known to him, whom he admitted to having sexually abused in the past, according to his plea agreement. Roman-Tuttle also admitted to knowingly possessing more than 9,000 images and 330 videos of child porn on his computer and on other devices, including images depicting the sexual abuse and exploitation of infants or toddlers, and to knowingly possessing a sexually explicit image of the minor known to him.
