LOS ANGELES – A California Highway Patrol officer who pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography was sentenced Friday to 180 days in county jail and ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and to complete a sex offender counseling program.
Robert Tamayo, 38, of Lancaster, also was ordered to serve five years of probation, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Tamayo was taken into custody immediately to begin serving the jail term stemming from his May 15 plea.
Tamayo — a CHP officer at the time of his arrest last year — had more than 600 child pornography images on his computers and cell phones, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
CHP officials could not be reached for immediate comment on his current status.
The 10-year CHP veteran had been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of criminal and administrative investigations, CHP Sgt. Saul Gomez said last year. Tamayo had been assigned to the CHP’s Antelope Valley Area office, Gomez said.
The District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation into Tamayo after getting a tip from the FBI, and the CHP cooperated with the investigation, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Previous related story: Antelope Valley CHP officer charged with sharing child porn
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Sue says
I live in the same neighborhood as the convicted individual and pass his home daily. I can only assume he spent all of his off duty hours engrossed in looking or distributing his child porn because in all the years he’s lived there he never turns his hand at keeping his yard clean. The weeds grow up around cars parked in front of the house. The place is totally unkept. Tall grass, weeds, trash and non operative cars . Totally surprised to learn he was in law enforcement.
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Misty says
How’d they find out he had child porn? I’m less concerned with the offense, and more concerned exactly how he was caught. Cause for concern, the FBI didn’t make the arrest. Did they? Denote, that it was “a tip,” from none other than the FBI, world’s largest bureaucratic purveyor of child pornography on planet Earth. Parallel reconstruction, good bet the FBI likely handed down the dossier to CHP, along with its metadata sufficient to sidestep the officer’s civil rights, and allow CHP an outline for recreating a false parallel investigative pathway for the kangaroo court. No two ways about it, the 21st Century equivalent of East Germany’s Stasi, the FBI is wired, into everything and everyone.
Dr. Craig says
If you have a cell phone? Or, if you’re on the internet? Then, you’re under surveillance. Word to the wise, never (NEVER) move collateral back and forth, between your cell phone and your internet. Assume you’re under surveillance, and that nothing you ever do, online or on your cell phone, can ever be deleted. The only electronic privacy you’ll have will be, on an air gapped device (e.g., a computer never connected to the internet).
Karla says
Hmmm. Good question. How would the guy get caught for something like that? Nothing intrinsically illegal about it, all you’re doing, keying on the keyboard, pushing buttons on your handhelds. Without a highly sophisticated form of domestic surveillance, the guy could have carried on a lifetime, no one ever the wiser. The 64 thousand dollar question is, what’s the trigger? What triggers FBI surveillance? Simple environmental reasoning, the answer is likely to be: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Instagram, MSN. Those two-faced Santa Clara Valley ivory tower tech firms are blacklisting people they don’t particularly like; turning them out to the FBI. That begs another question. Quid pro quo, what’s the FBI doing for them?
KC Cowgirl says
Of course. The AV gets only the best most choice officers.
Scianel says
Possessing such pictures is no laughing matter and should be punished. What is ridiculous is that this guy is now considered such a public safety threat that he has to register with law enforcement for the rest of his life, and will be publicly shamed until has last breath. For a crime worth 180 days in jail.
Had he possessed photos of a child beating or a child murder, or actually beaten or murdered a child – not so much.
Either abolish the sex offender registry or register all criminals likewise. America’s obsession with sex in this day and age is bizarre.
James says
Law enforcement has the right to posses evidence. He may have been doing an investigation to find victims of predators. Since the law is general, detectives fall under the category of criminals when they view evidence.
Joe Friday says
Jibberish
Tim Scott says
James, the lengths that some badge lickers will go to in excusing a cop are always surprising, but you really set a record there.
Austin Gunn says
You’re a pedophile and there will be a day your charred remains are tossed unceremoniously into a mass grave
Btw…. the crime is not worth 180 days. It’s worth years in prison and his sentence is a travesty of justice
Kris says
… naaah, I don’t believe a thing I read on this particular subject. Especially so, in the mainstream media. I’ve grown skeptical whensoever I see some guy, set up for public humiliation, porned-up by the government in the mainstream media. Page 1 right out of the defense-intelligence playbook, when they can’t write you off a headcase, they’ll smear you with child pornography. Biggest purveyor of child pornography on planet Earth, the United States government. It runs covert dedicated units specialized in porning up target individuals they seek to soften up, extort or leverage.
Barbara says
No two ways about it, Uncle Sam has a porn fetish. It seemed to have blossomed during WWII. A good while back the Rotten dot com people a turned up a vintage hoard of classic OSS WWII pornography. In fact, the United States Army Air Force bombarded more porn over national socialist Germany, than explosives.
James says
Adult pornography is part of human reproduction. People that are critical of adult pornography are complicit in genocide like the Nazis. Weapons and war are needed to prevent genocide.
Reality says
I think your IPL address needs traced by the detectives that monitor this site. In the world of computers anything you post can be traced by your Ipl.. address. Which means your location can be traced and all things you Google or search can be traced… the hard part for detectives and this is an issue is that all cell phones make you give access in order to have apps on your phone… once you accept you can be remotely accessed by those apps… and they can post, trace, monitor as if they are you. I believe if he is accused of this crime there is enough evidence. He deserves life in prison for having perversion toward a child… period! You defending it makes you a child potential threat and that’s why I want to congratulate your post because I’ll bet your whole life is under review at this very second.
James says
Reality, you appear to be afflicted with mental illness. Your the same type of person who conducted the Salem witch hunts. You even sound like a Communist by pusecuting others that post or speak.
You’re pursecuting Kris because he believes in government conspiracy and your falsely accusing him of something he’s not. You use fear to achieve control like the Nazis, yet I’m not saying you are because I would fall under your category.
Have you ever wondered why the government refuses to remove all child image’s from the net, both legal and illegal? Maybe the government has a perversion, yet your such a brown noser that you wouldn’t condemn the government for not removing all child porn off the net and allowing it to circulate.
James says
I’m not questioning the illegality. I’m trying to understand the behavior.
In evolution, there are three types of genetic behavior.1. successful behavior spanning back thousands or millions of years. 2. Non-funtional behavior spanning back thousands or millions of years. 3. Behaviors that are new mutations which are being tested by evolution.
That CHP officer has a gene which gives him control over his compulsive behavior. That control gene took thousands of years to develop through the process of trail and error.
Some men are born without the gene and they are not capable of applying control. They are classified, by the legal system, as violent offenders. Their reproductive system is similar to fish and amphibians. It’s a rare gene that is dormant, but is now replicating quickly because of the large human population maintained by the farming system and a nutrient rich environment. The prison system is slowing it down by creating a barrier against reproduction with adult women. The natural barrier of trail and error in effect a thousand years ago is gone with the elimination of the small hunting and gather groups.
In a small group like that, a male that eliminated females would cause a separation within the group leaving him with no chance to pass on the defective behavior.
Dontunderstand says
Wow….180 day’s only. What is wrong with the system.? But he was a cop/sheriff/ CHP. Lmao
Dani says
My thoughts exactly. That’s it? 6 months, out in how long due to overcrowding? Never mind, he’ll never see gen pop anyway. SMH.
James says
180 days because he’s classified as a non-violent offender. There are people who don’t look at pornography, yet they are violent offenders. A judge looks for more facts such as history to determine a danger to society.
Alexis says
Child pornography is a form of child sexual exploitation, and each image graphically memorializes the sexual abuse of that child. Vile and deviant behavior by a CHP officer, and he only gets 180 days in jail.
James says
Exploitation is a physical activity such as trafficking or molestation. Transferring pornography is distribution. He is being held guilty of observing an image of somebody else committing an act.
Alexis says
@James…If you did your homework, you would have known that this cop distributed pornography as well, but they dropped it because he took a plea deal. Also, those children that this deviant was observing were and are being trafficked, so it is exploitation. I suggest you receive some counseling to remove your compulsion for children.
a_mom says
If you knew anything than you would know that downloading an indexed file on a P2P network and having it (by default) in the download folder (even for a nano-second) where someone MAY access it is considered possession.
This is true if the objectionable file was downloaded as part of a package of legal files, if it was never viewed or if it was viewed and immediately deleted. Downloading it from a P2P network is instant distribution.
The FBI, when it not actively operates sites offering illegal images for download, monitors these files and their associated activity. One might wonder why efforts to delete and eradicate them are not part of their quest to protect children. Hmmmm….
As a parent and wife, it is my greatest fear in life to have my son click on something while sitting in his dorm room on a lonely Friday night. Because, that, like nothing else, will obliterate one’s life. Not even beating to within and inch of their life the very same child.
James says
Alexis, your making an assumption. You have no evidence that any of those kids are being trafficked. He may not have had any intention or knowledge of distribution if he was connected to an automated system. Don’t forget that female teachers don’t watch child pornography, yet they they are the highest population for child abuse and they constantly make the news. For your information, I have never abused any children.