School superintendent sentenced over porn
The former superintendent of schools in Leavenworth, Wash., was sentenced Wednesday to serve 41 months in federal prison for possessing hundreds of pictures of child pornography.
The child porn was found in January on the school district computer used by Patrick Mark Lyons after an anonymous tip was received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Lister said at a sentencing hearing in Spokane.
“Pornography grabbed ahold of me in a way I did not recognize,” the 48-year-old career educator told Senior U.S. District Court Judge Frem Nielsen before being sentenced to prison.
“I wish there was some way to go back and re-do the last four years of my life,” Lyons said, acknowledging he’d made “a pretty serious mistake.”
The educator offered a public apology for “my betrayal of trust to my wife and my community.”
Lyons confessed to possessing child pornography the first time he was interviewed by investigators, Lister said.
Immediately after being confronted, Lyons resigned as superintendent of the Cascade School District in Leavenworth. Lyons was indicted in March on charges of possessing child pornography and distribution of child pornography.
FBI agents, who handled the investigation, spent considerable time interviewing children, teachers and others who had contact with Lyons in an attempt to determine if he had been involved in molesting or taking sexually explicit photos of children.
“There was no indication of that at all,” Lister told the court.
However, the FBI investigation revealed that Lyons also had downloaded child pornography while working at the East Valley School District in Yakima between 1992 and 2003, the prosecutor said.
Lyons was assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent for the East Valley district before being hired as superintendent in Leavenworth in July 2003. Between 1979 and 1992, Lyons was a teacher in the Sunnyside School District.
The distribution charge was filed because an FBI investigation revealed Lyons had posted various photographs of young boys engaged in sexually explicit conduct on an Internet users’ group site known as “santas-bag,” Lister said.
“He had a large collection – over 300 and less than 600 – of child pornography,” the federal prosecutor told the court.
Lyons pleaded guilty to the possession charge as part of a plea bargain that saw the U.S. Attorney’s Office move for the dismissal of the second count. He likely would have faced even more time in prison if convicted by a jury of both charges.
Lyons faced a sentencing range of 41 to 51 months in prison, and the prosecutor recommended the low end, which is the term imposed by the judge. Nielsen also ordered Lyons to complete five years of supervised release after he gets out of prison.
Lyons’ attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater, objected to a pre-sentence report recommending that Lyons complete a sexual offender program and that he be ordered to stay away from children and locations where they gather after he is released from prison.
The judge said the sentence will include a mental health evaluation, which will determine if he’s a candidate for treatment as a sex offender. The judge also ordered Lyons to have no contact with children without adult supervision.
“I know this whole matter has had a profound effect on you,” Nielsen told Lyons, who will be allowed to self-report to a federal prison once the facility is designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.