Man sentenced in computer sex case

A former U.S. Border Patrol employee was sentenced to four months of confinement Tuesday for using his work computer to plan a sexual rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet who really was a Spokane Police Department detective.

Rick A. LeVa, who lives in Florida, faced the possibility of several years in prison but was given credit by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush for post-arrest rehabilitation under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Quackenbush also said LeVa’s behavior met the guidelines’ definition of “aberrant,” meaning it was unusual for him.

“You don’t need to be locked up to protect society,” the judge told LeVa at the end of a 4 1/2 -hour sentencing hearing. “You are not a predator. You are not a pornographer.”

A Spokane jury in July found LeVa guilty of using a computer to coerce or entice a minor to engage in an unlawful sex act.

The jury acquitted LeVa, a civilian computer technician with the Border Patrol, of traveling across state lines with the intent of having sex with a minor.

With credits for “aberrant behavior” and rehabilitation steps he’s taken, LeVa faced a sentence of four to 10 months in prison.

The judge sentenced him to serve one month in prison, to be followed by three months of home confinement. Afterward, LeVa must complete three years of supervised release where he will be under the scrutiny of a federal probation officer.

During that three-year period of supervised release, LeVa will be prohibited from using the Internet and will be subject to lie detector tests to ensure he is complying with that condition of probation. Fired by the Border Patrol, LeVa now works as a carpenter.

If future employment requires him to use the Internet, LeVa must request and get court authorization, Quackenbush said.

The judge also ordered LeVa to pay a $1,000 fine in $30 monthly installments “so each month you will have to pause and reflect how close you came to going to a federal prison.”

LeVa told the court he suffers from attention deficit disorder, depression and an “impulse conduct” disorder. He is taking medication and has received psychiatric and psychological counseling in Florida, he told the court.

LeVa met “Susie Ann,” posing as a 13-year-old, in an Internet chat room in 2002. Using “instant messaging” from his Border Patrol computer in Florida, LeVa engaged in a four-hour, sexually explicit discussion with the teenager, who really was Spokane Police Detective Curt Kendall.

The two exchanged messages for the next six days before LeVa traveled from Florida to Spokane on Border Patrol business. Immediately after arriving in Spokane, LeVa sent another message to “Susie Ann” and arranged a meeting at an apartment.

When he knocked on the door, LeVa was arrested by the police detective.

“The nature of the offense is repugnant to me,” said LeVa, who has a 12-year-old son.

LeVa said he had become obsessed with using the Internet, and would often stay up late at night buying things online that he didn’t need. Then he gravitated to sexually explicit chat rooms, having online discussions with women while his own wife slept.

“Any chatting I did on the Internet was with adults,” LeVa told the judge. He claimed that he knew Susie Ann was an adult.

Investigators told the court that they found no evidence of child pornography or any other contact with minors during searches of his computers.

“Admitting I had a problem was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do,” said the former Marine Corps captain, who saw action in Desert Storm in 1991.