Ex-Deputy Pleads Guilty To Child Porn Charge

A former Fairfax County sheriff's deputy and youth football coach pleaded guilty yesterday to a child pornography charge after investigators found more than 6,000 images of child pornography on his computer, including some depicting girls as young as 4 engaged in sexual activity with adult males, prosecutors said.

Robert A. Romero, who resigned the day he was arrested in November, after 19 years as a deputy, did not explain his actions during the hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. His attorneys said Romero, 44, never intended to harm anyone and was doing research when he downloaded the images.

"His intention was to research the criminal mind of a person who engages in child pornography," defense lawyer Atchuthan Sriskandarajah said in an interview after Romero pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography.

But prosecutors dismissed that explanation in court documents filed since Romero's arrest, saying that he had received graphic images of children for years and had a strong sexual interest in 8-year-olds. They said Romero coached youth football in Chantilly and Centreville between 2001 and 2004 and made crime and safety presentations to the community for the sheriff's department. He also fingerprinted children for child safety cards.

"Even a cursory review of these images confirms that Defendant was collecting and distributing horrific images of child sexual abuse," Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward J. McAndrew wrote in a motion last month seeking to deny Romero bond. He has been jailed since his arrest. "That this officer of the Fairfax County courts would do so for his own enjoyment and gratification speaks directly to the depravity of his offenses and his inability to control his deviant impulses," McAndrew said.

Fairfax County Sheriff Stan Barry said yesterday that Romero was "an anomaly" in his department. "You get bad people in any line of work, but this guy was ferreted out, and justice will be dispensed to him," Barry said.

Romero is the latest high-profile defendant caught up in a sweeping law enforcement crackdown against Internet-fueled child pornography. Among those convicted or sent to prison in the past year in Virginia and Maryland are the former head of the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union, an Ivy League professor and a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

The growing number of cases has prompted debate among some defense lawyers and treatment professionals about whether viewing photographs and other images, without necessarily hurting a child, warrants years in prison. But prosecutors say that many offenders also molest children and that Internet child pornography is increasingly graphic and sadistic.

The investigation of Romero began early last year, after an undercover FBI agent searched online for people who were sharing child pornography images using "peer-to-peer" software. The agent found someone who was making numerous files available to share and traced them to Romero's home computer in Centreville.

When agents arrived at Romero's home Nov. 8, before they said what they were searching for, Romero "dropped his head into his hands and said something to the effect of, 'It's all over,' " McAndrew wrote in his motion against bond. He said Romero admitted, out loud and in writing, that he had been searching for and receiving child pornography for years.

Romero told the agents that he knew it was wrong but thought he wouldn't get "in trouble" because of his position with the sheriff's department, McAndrew wrote.

In court documents filed with Romero's plea, he acknowledged that prosecutors could prove that there were more than 1,500 child pornography images on his computer hard drive. But prosecutors said the government has actually found more than 6,000 images, including some that had been deleted. The images, some depicting violence, included prepubescent girls and boys.

Romero faces five to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced April 4. One of his attorneys, Domingo J. Rivera, said Romero "has not harmed anybody. He had a spotless record and has led an absolutely law-abiding life."

Staff writer Tom Jackman contributed to this report.