Randy Zacherle, Child Pornography, Washington 2014

SPOKANE, Washington – In a disturbing case of child exploitation, Randy Zacherle, a 55-year-old Okanogan man, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography images.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington, Zacherle was convicted by a jury on November 3, 2014, of Possession of Child Pornography. United States District Court Judge Stanley Allen Bastian handed down the sentence, which will be followed by a life term of court supervision after Zacherle’s release from federal prison.

As part of the sentence, Zacherle was also ordered to forfeit the laptop computer he used to receive and store his child pornography collection. He will be required to register as a sex offender.

This is not the first time Zacherle has been convicted of a sex-related crime. In 2009, he was convicted of Possession of Child Pornography and sentenced to 26 months and 8 days in prison. He was also required to register as a sex offender.

However, Zacherle’s failure to register as a sex offender caught up with him in 2013. On April 29, he was arrested by Deputies from the United States Marshal’s Service and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office for failure to register. He was later convicted federally for the same offense on October 30, 2013.

A subsequent investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that Zacherle had been using a laptop computer with wiping software to receive and possess images of child pornography from 2011 until his arrest in April 2013. Law enforcement discovered that he had collected over 1,000 images of child pornography, which included prepubescent female children under the age of 12.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Marshal’s Service, and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by Stephanie J. Lister and Matthew Duggan, Assistant United States Attorneys for the Eastern District of Washington.

This case is part of the nationwide initiative Project Safe Childhood, which aims to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Related Federal Cases