Child pornographer says he shouldn’t get life in prison

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Updated: March 24, 2012 9:04AM

A Starke County man disputes that he should serve life in prison after pleading guilty to making child pornography, arguing that the sentencing rules in place today are harsher than those when his crime took place in 2002.

According to a sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, Randall Fletcher Jr. argues that his sentencing range should instead be from about 20 years to 25 years.

Fletcher pleaded guilty without a plea agreement in September 2010 to five counts relating to child pornography and admitted that he had taken sexual pictures of a 7-year-old child in his care in February 2002 from his San Pierre home and another location in Rensselaer, along with downloading child pornography images from the Internet.

Federal prosecutors filed their own sentencing memorandum last week, saying that a report shows that Fletcher’s sentencing range should be life in prison. However, Fletcher’s filing says that the report used today’s sentencing rules to come up with life in prison. His crime took place in 2002, and the rules then were not so harsh, the filing says.

The filing notes that prosecutors did not charge Fletcher until May 2009, seven years after not only his crime but the time when federal officials had taken his computer, which had evidence of his crimes on it. It’s not Fletcher’s fault that prosecutors waited so long to press charges, the filing says, and he shouldn’t be punished for the delay.

Fletcher is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.