A prosecution attorney said that a former Kansas teacher who was given a 30-year jail term for child pornography contacted several of his alleged victims to ask them to serve as his character witnesses.
In order to persuade minor males to “send him images of themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” Jeffrey D. Pierce, a 42-year-old former high school teacher and basketball coach in Topeka, “impersonated a minor female on various social media platforms,” according to a Justice Department statement.
Pierce accepted a plea agreement in which 11 further federal charges against him were dropped in return for his guilty plea to one count of manufacturing child pornography, Insider previously reported.
Federal prosecutor Austin Berry said at the sentencing hearing on September 22 that Pierce requested letters of support from some of his claimed victims in order to get witness testimonies asking for a lenient punishment.
According to Berry, who was quoted by the Topeka Capital-Journal, “Either he forgot that he harmed these boys or he’s so heartless that he feels it doesn’t matter.”
Christopher Joseph, Pierce’s defense lawyer, acknowledged that the prosecutor’s statement was “quotable,” but he expressed uncertainty as to its veracity in an interview with Insider.
According to Joseph, the defense sent roughly 30 letters in Pierce’s favor. The defense developed general guidelines for “what we look for and who we want to send letters to support” Pierce from individuals who “meaningfully know him” as part of the process of collecting support from community members, Joseph said.
“I believe his relatives sent them around to other people, and one of them wound up in the possession of a lady who says her two boys were the victims. Everyone was shocked by this, even the FBI and the administration, since there is no forensic proof to support what she claims “Joseph spoke with Insider. “I think Austin thought it was a funny fact, since that’s what he said. I’m not sure whether it’s accurate. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t.”
Berry did not react when asked for comment by Insider. A spokesman for the Justice Department refused to respond on his behalf.
According to Joseph, seven persons urged the court to punish Pierce harshly via letters or speeches during the sentencing. Joseph said that those who wrote in Pierce’s defense “were talking about the rest of Jeff Pierce.”
“When you go for sentence, you concentrate on some really heinous behavior that occurred over time, but Jeff is and has done other things as well. Thus, they discuss Jeff’s strengths and encouraging aspects of his life, which helps to provide a more complete picture of Jeff than the horrifying events that are revealed to the court during the sentencing hearing. The remainder of the tale, or, if you prefer, the remainder of his life “Joseph remarked.
According to Joseph, the defense requested a 20-year sentence from the court.
According to the Capital-Journal, U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse awarded Pierce the maximum 30-year prison term plus five years of supervised release and expressed his sympathy for Pierce’s victims’ parents by stating he felt “particularly horrible” for them.
According to Joseph, who noted that the court might impose a term between 15 and 30 years, Pierce wants to challenge the sentence on two grounds, including the “substantive reasonableness of the penalty.”
“The judge has a difficult choice to make, and I don’t envy him or her. The fact that a variety of activity is covered is ultimately my case before the court—and basically the only one I have. And by no means is this the least important thing, nor is it the most important thing “Joseph said.