A babysitter who took photos and videos of himself sexually abusing a toddler at the request of a Broward man must serve 60 years in prison, a federal judge in Miami ruled Thursday.
Jason Barber, 39 of Las Vegas, previously pleaded guilty to charges including producing and distributing child pornography. Benedict Shaw, the man who police say received the images and requested certain poses of the 2-year-old, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. handed down the 60-year sentence despite pleas from Barber’s defense attorney for a more lenient sentence of 30 years.
“Before the court is an extremely frail, unstable and mentally infirmed man who was dealt an awful deck of cards from the very beginning,” Hugo Rodriguez wrote in a memorandum before Barber’s sentencing. “Jason understands and knows what he did was wrong, for which he is very remorseful.”
In 2013, the South Florida Internet Crimes against Children Task Force, which is based in Broward County, received two cyber tips suspecting that dozens of child pornography images had been traded among several email accounts. The IP address led detectives to Shaw’s home in Lauderhill, records show. Law enforcement officers confirmed Shaw was communicating with Barber, who lived in Las Vegas.
The two had met in an online chatroom for people with a diaper fetish, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday announcing Barber’s sentence. Shaw had shipped Barber a package with a cell phone, diapers, pacifiers and baby oil, theSun Sentinel reported at the time of Barber’s arrest.
“Take pics and vids. This will make my night and my packages worthwhile,” Shaw wrote in one email to Barber obtained by the Sun Sentinel. “No one else will ever see it. I promise I never break my word.”
Barber had convinced the mother of the child to allow him to watch the girl while she was at work, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the news release.
“Barber used the cell phone to record himself sexually abusing the child in his care,” the office said in the release. “Barber then sent the video and several still images to Shaw via email.”
Shaw, who had assumed his dead brother’s identity because of charges he faced in another state, was sentenced in October 2014.
At the sentencing hearing, the girl’s mother confronted Shaw, the Sun Sentinel reported.
“How dare you violate a child? How dare you do that to a child or anyone?” she said during the hearing, according to the paper. “I pray that you don’t feel what those children felt where you’re at.”
