U.S. judge imposes 63-month sentence in child-porn case

A Saline County man was sentenced Monday to 63 months in prison after admitting to uploading well over 800 images of child pornography to an online storage site.

Jarrod P. Vaughn, 32, of Benton pleaded guilty in August to the crime before U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky, who imposed the sentence on Monday.

Vaughn faced a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. Because of his lack of criminal history, U.S. sentencing guidelines recommended a sentencing range between 51 months and 63 months in prison and a range of five years to life on supervised release.

Rudofsky noted that because the statutory minimum prison term for Vaughn’s offense is five years in prison, the effective guideline range in Vaughn’s case was 60 to 63 months.

Vaughn’s attorney, Marjorie Rogers of Little Rock, asked Rudofsky to consider sentencing her client to the low end of the statutory range of 60 months. She argued for Rudofsky to sentence Vaughn to the mandatory minimum because, she said, “the mandatory minimum means we can’t get to the low end of the guideline range.”

Rogers said Vaughn’s time on pre-trial release prior to his incarceration after his guilty plea was spent improving his life and trying to atone for his crime, to the point, she said, that Safe Harbor, a halfway house where Vaughn spent 14 months while on pre-trial release, had offered him a job as a counselor after he is released from prison.

“Mr. Vaughn has no criminal history, he has accepted responsibility,” she said, adding that at the time of his guilty plea, she had engaged in a lengthy hearing to determine if Vaughn could remain at Safe Harbor Halfway House while he awaited sentencing. Court records indicate that Rudofsky ordered Vaughn remanded into custody at his plea hearing.

“I do recall,” Rudofsky said.

When asked, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant said that she would defer to the court’s judgment but asked that Rudofsky consider a sentence within the range of the guidelines.

According to court records, Vaughn was indicted August 6, 2020, on three felony counts of transportation of child pornography.

A criminal complaint filed July 20, 2020, revealed that during an investigation into Vaughn’s activities the FBI and Little Rock Police Department turned up more than 2,000 images stored on an online database traced back to Vaughn that fit the statutory definition of child pornography.

Vaughn apologized for his actions but told Rudofsky that he was prepared to accept whatever punishment the judge deemed appropriate.

“I’m guilty of this, and I richly deserve whatever the court decides,” he said. “Whatever it is I will graciously accept it.”

Vaughn said during his time at Safe Harbor he was able to assist a number of people who were there, both staff and clients, and he said the experience had allowed him to reflect on the harm he had caused through his actions.

“That by no means mitigates everything I’ve done but I do believe it speaks to my character and my resolve to better myself past the issues that I’ve caused,” Vaughn said. “I deeply regret everything that happened … all the pain I’ve caused in general.”

In addition to 63 months in prison, Rudofsky ordered Vaughn to spend an additional 10 years on supervised release.

He cautioned Vaughn that punishment for a second offense would be far more severe.

“If you do this again, you will end up in prison for a significant portion of your natural life,” Rudofsky said.