SALT LAKE CITY — A South Ogden man found with thousands of files of child pornography was sentenced to prison Friday.
Jeremiah David Rivera, 26, was ordered to serve four years in federal prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. The prison term is shorter than federal prosecutors had asked for, while Rivera's attorneys had requested he not be incarcerated at all.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball recommend that Rivera be incarcerated in Los Angeles' Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in order to be near family, but the Board of Prisons will determine which facility Rivera will report to when his sentence begins Oct. 27.
Rivera pleaded guilty last November to possession of child pornography, a charge carrying a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
Police said they found more than 2,000 images and 98 videos depicting child pornography on Rivera's phone after a co-worker picked up Rivera's misplaced device and spotted the images as he tried to figure out who it belonged to.
While a pre-sentence report recommended Rivera serve between 6 1/2 and eight years behind bars, Rivera's attorneys filed a memorandum asking that he instead be sentenced to "a significant period of home detention" followed by five years of supervised release.
The 47-page memorandum includes recommendations from four mental health professionals — three who treated Rivera and one who conducted a required psychosexual evaluation — advising against prison time.
The four letters point to possibilities of depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other conditions, suggesting that incarceration would deteriorate Rivera's mental health.
In his own statement provided in the memorandum, Rivera said struggles keeping employment, losing a job he enjoyed, a difficult relationship with a girlfriend, the death of his grandfather and constant conflict with his father pushed him to rebel and turn to "downloading stuff as my solace."
In the summer of 2015, Rivera wrote, "I found child pornography."
"At first, the downloading was sparse, then as time went on, I got bolder and saved some of the stuff I found on my SD card which I kept in my phone," Rivera wrote.
Letters of support for Rivera were also provided, including from Pastor David Mallinak of Berean Baptist Church in Ogden, which Rivera and his family have attended for 15 years, and members of the congregation there.
After news reports detailed the allegations against Rivera, Pastor Mallinak wrote that Rivera was placed on church discipline, which was dealt with publicly in the congregation and came "one step short of excommunication."
The pastor also said that while news reports pointed to an online advertisement identifying Rivera as the founder of the Learning Place, a tutoring service based in South Ogden, Rivera never received any business from the ad and simply moved on from the project without removing the post.
Federal prosecutors responded to the lengthy memorandum with a statement just three pages long, saying they saw no reason to deviate from the original sentencing recommendation.
"The factual basis in this case is repugnant. It takes a rare individual to stomach viewing the brutal victimization of prepubescent children let alone seek it out in any of its grotesque forms. Defendant Rivera's gravitation to child pornography feeds a deplorable industry that capitalizes on lifelong exploitation and abuse of innocent children," prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors noted that, while he was out of jail, Rivera admitted to 20 separate violations of his pretrial release this year. Those violations included failing to charge his GPS monitor, which allowed it to stop functioning temporarily; going to unauthorized locations like shopping malls, auto yards, private residences and the airport; being away from home outside his curfew; and leaving his house without permission.
Rivera spent two days in jail last month for the violations, which prosecutors said showed he was "unequivocally incapable of adhering to the most basic form of supervision."