A federal judge in San Antonio took the rare step this week of going above and beyond the sentencing guidelines in the case of a retired Homeland Security analyst who was caught with a huge stash of child pornography.
1200 WOAI news was the only station there when Richard Armendariz Sr. was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. That's three years more than the federal sentencing guidelines allowed in this case
."I'm very sorry, because I know it hurts children," Armendariz said, referring to the 800 kiddie porn images and 140 videos the FBI found on his computer. "I'm more sorry about that than anything else."
Armendariz, 70, doesn't fit the profile of more perverts who are hauled into San Antonio's Federal Courthouse. In addition to his age, he's served the country honorably for years with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In his work as an analyst, he was given top security clearances.
Prosecutors say, for years, he lived a double life.
It was only at home that he indulged in a secret lust for videos that the FBI says bordered on mutilation. It was fueled by a website on the darkweb, called Playpen, which has gained a notorious reputation as the hangout of the worst of the worst child molesters. The FBI busted it in March of 2015, but instead of shutting it down, they tracked the visitors. Armendariz was one of 215,000 caught accessing perverted pictures.
In court this week, prosecutors testified that Armendariz chose to save on his computer some of the violent videos they have ever seen.
"He chose to look for toddlers. He chose to look for masochistic videos," Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson said.
Judge Fred Biery agreed.
"To satisfy his sexual urges with this stuff, that's more than a curiosity. Frankly, I don’t see how these children lived."
Armendariz is related to prominent civil rights attorney Albert Armendariz Sr., who died in 2007. The founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, argued Hernandez vs. the State of Texas, which was a landmark case that established Latinos as a distinct class entitled to protection under the 14th Amendment. Later he argued Alvarado vs. El Paso Independent School District, which resulted in a federal court order requiring desegregation in El Paso schools. The courthouse in El Paso was named in his honor.
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