Ex-deputy gets five years
Related victims ask for leniency in case
SANTA FE — Dustin Bingham’s young sexual assault victims asked a judge for leniency at his sentencing hearing Wednesday, describing the former Santa Fe County deputy as a beloved family member who didn’t deserve a long prison term.
“This is not him,” one the girls he assaulted told state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer. “He has a heart of gold and doesn’t deserve to be in jail for 25 years.”
The judge later sentenced Bingham to a total of five years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised probation.
In November, Bingham, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of unclothed criminal sexual contact of a minor under 13, one count of clothed criminal sexual contact of a minor under 13, one count of criminal sexual contact of a minor by force or coercion, one count of child solicitation by electronic device and one count of sexual exploitation of children. The crimes were committed against two young members of his extended family and another teen girl while Bingham was a deputy.
Prosecutors, and the victim who was not a relative, asked for the maximum sentence of 25 years incarceration.
“This is interesting because two victims are asking for the lightest sentence possible, and one other victim is asking for the maximum,” Marlowe Sommer told Bingham in court. “It’s heartbreaking to have these two girls come up here and say they don’t want you to go through any punishment. I really think that you betrayed a trust that they gave you unwittingly.”
Bingham was an Santa Fe County deputy from April 2015 to February 2017. State Police began investigating him in January 2017 after a mother reported concern about her daughter’s social media contacts with Bingham. He resigned from the sheriff’s office Feb. 3 after Sheriff Robert A. Garcia placed him under an internal investigation.
“I don’t think we should punish him because he swore to protect the public,” Bingham’s lawyer, Stephen Aarons, told the judge Wednesday. “He’s done many good things outside of this. I think his public service should qualify him for leniency instead of a harsher sentence.”
Bingham’s parents in May called the police in Los Alamos, where they lived, and said Bingham molested the two extended family members whom he regularly visited and babysat. At one point Bingham lived with the girls’ family and shared a room with one of them. One girl told police that Bingham removed her bra while she was sleeping, which she discovered when she woke up the next morning without one.
District Attorney Marco Serna, who was at Wednesday’s hearing, said in a statement released later that protecting children from sexual predators is the office’s top priority. “Bingham was a wolf in sheep’s clothing while he served as a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Fe County and that made him extremely dangerous,” Serna said. “I am disappointed that he was not sentenced to more years in prison, but we will continue to seek justice for our innocent victims.”