The Alaska Court of Appeals has upheld a 2014 conviction of a Juneau man on charges of distributing and possessing child pornography.
In August 2014, Jeremy S. Deach pleaded guilty to seven counts of distributing child pornography and seven counts of possessing child pornography. Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg sentenced Deach to a composite term of eight years and four months to serve, with an additional 16 years suspended.
The memorandum opinion from Alaska Court of Appeals Judge David Mannheimer explains why he and his fellow judges found that Pallenberg’s sentencing was correct.
“We have independently reviewed the record, and we conclude that the judge’s sentencing decision is clearly not mistaken,” the memorandum opinion reads.
Pallenberg, who issued the ruling in February 2015, said in his sentencing remarks that he was troubled by how graphic and numerous the images and videos distributed by Deach were. The memorandum also agrees with Pallenberg that Deach might still present danger to a community even after receiving treatment.
Another important factor in Pallenberg’s sentencing was Deach’s “unhealthy sexual proclivities for children,” as he stated in his sentencing remarks. Pallenberg noted that Deach had frequently convinced himself that young children were making sexual overtures to him, and that based on these impulses, Pallenberg concluded that there was “substantial risk” that Deach might act on those impulses in the future.
Deach’s reason for appeal was that he felt the court gave him an excessive sentence. His lawyer at the time, Assistant Public Defender Grace Lee, argued that because Deach distributed the images and videos via BitTorrent — a network that draws small parts of files from numerous computers in order to create one full file — he wasn’t distributing full images or video. Therefore, Lee argued, Deach’s actions were not as serious as those who distribute full files and so his sentence should be less serious.
Deach was 43 when he was arrested in August 2013 after authorities located his computer downloading and sharing child pornography in Juneau. An Alaska Bureau of Investigations Technical Crimes Unit investigator downloaded more than 2,700 illegal photos and videos of child pornography.
During court proceedings, it was unclear whether Deach had a history of molestation. Assistant District Attorney Angie Kemp played an audio recording in which Deach told officers that he had sexually molested one boy in 1994 and another in 2002. Deach said that he lied in that interview because he thought that he had to admit sexually abusing someone in order to get into the sex offender treatment program.
Kemp argued at the time that Deach’s sentence should have been 13 years in prison, based on the explicit nature of the images and videos. Pallenberg agreed that a significant sentence was necessary, and that one of his main reasons was to protect the community from Deach.
“I’m certainly hopeful that with appropriate treatment and monitoring and containment that Mr. Deach can be safe, and the community can be safe from him, more importantly,” Pallenberg said during the sentencing in 2014. “I’m hopeful for that. Am I confident about that and that he doesn’t present a danger? I’m not. And I think most parents would be very, very frightened if Mr. Deach was living next door to them.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
