A federal judge in Gainesville has sentenced a former White County sheriff’s deputy to serve 15 years in prison for producing child pornography.

U.S. District Senior Judge William O’Kelley of the Northern District of Georgia sentenced former deputy Christopher Davis,34, of Dahlonega today following Davis’s guilty plea in September for taking photographs of a 7-year-old girl engaged in what federal prosecutors described as “sexually explicit conduct.”

Prosecutors said the photos of the child were taken inside Davis’s home at a time when he was employed as a White County sheriff’s deputy. The photography sessions took place during May and June of 2009, prosecutors said.

Davis was arrested by federal agents in August 2011 as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the U.S. Justice Department to combat the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

According to the federal complaint, homeland security agents in Los Angeles monitoring the Internet for violations of federal child exploitations statutes discovered a publicly accessible website that offered links to a number of adult pornography websites and included chat features.  While monitoring that site, agents discovered several nude photos of the child in sexually explicit poses.

The discovery of the photos led agents to a Texas man and his girlfriend — who subsequently identified the child as the biological daughter of her former husband, Christopher Davis.

The woman, Lisa Davis, denied knowing about the pornographic photos but told federal agents that while she was married to Davis, that her ex-husband often took photos and videos of his daughter, especially at bath time or when she changed clothes, according to the federal complaint. Lisa Davis also told agents that her ex-husband had a large pornography collection that included sexually explicit photos of prepubescent girls.

She said that when she left Davis in 2009, she took with her a computer hard drive belonging to him that she believed contained pictures and videos of her, according to the complaint. That hard drive, which agents seized, contained thousands of pornographic images, the complaint stated.  Her ex-husband and her boyfriend, she told federal agents, were “very close friends.”

Federal agents subsequently confronted Christopher Davis, who admitted that he had taken the photographs in question, according to the federal complaint.

“The defendant violated the trust of a young girl and his community,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Yates of in announcing White’s sentence.

Said Brock Nicholson, special agent in charge of U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigations in Atlanta:

As egregious as this crime is, it’s even more disappointing considering an officer sworn to uphold the law and protect the innocent has engaged in this despicable behavior. We are a witness to an epidemic of the sexual exploitation of children across all sectors of our society. It is imperative that we take every step possible to stop this horrific abuse and ensure these predators will never again have access to a child.

Contributor: R. Robin McDonald in Sentencing | subscribe to rss |   share