(Lander, WY) – 33-year-old Fremont County man Wayne Hatch was sentenced to 7-12 years imprisonment today, August 13, for a sexual exploitation of children felony charge.
The hearing was overseen by the Honorable Judge Kate McKay, with the State represented by Patrick LeBrun, and Jonathan Gerard acting as the Defense.
Hatch was originally charged with two counts of distributing child sexual exploitation material, and one count of possession of child sexual exploitation material, but Counts 2 and 3 were ultimately dropped as per a plea agreement, which also amended/re-worded Count 1 as “sexual exploitation of children.”
Hatch faced these charges after the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force received a cybertip that a message app account/email address tied to Hatch had uploaded six video files of apparent child pornography, back in January of 2024.
These files reportedly contained videos of children aged from “toddler” to “early pubescent” being forced into explicit sexual situations.
Upon obtaining a search warrant, investigators then found “161 binary unique files,” eight of which were images, while the other 153 were videos ranging from four seconds to over three minutes, according to Court documents. Examples of the content depicted in these videos and images were described in the affidavit, some of which involved animals and sadomasochism.
During the course of the investigation, agents also confirmed that at that time (in March), Hatch was on probation for a felony charge involving bringing a controlled substance into a detention facility.
Hatch went on to initially plead “not guilty” to the charges back in April and a jury trial was set for July, however, a plea agreement was filed on his behalf on May 24.
The agreement stipulated that Hatch would change his plea to “no contest” as to Count 1 (sexual exploitation of children), and that the remaining Counts would be dismissed.
The agreement set the minimum/maximum sentence for that charge at 5-7 years imprisonment (the maximum sentence for a sexual exploitation of children felony charge is 7-12 years).
A change of plea hearing was held on June 11, which resulted in the jury trial being vacated and today’s sentencing hearing being set.
At the outset of today’s sentencing, the Court rejected the plea agreement, but after the State and the Defense conferred, they agreed to adjust the sentence to the maximum of 7-12 years.
Hatch was given the option to withdraw his “no contest” plea due to the Court’s rejection of the agreement, but chose to continue with the plea.
LeBrun commented that the State felt the maximum of 7-12 years was a “significantly sufficient” sentence, especially in terms of sending a “message” to any potential future perpetrators.
Gerard also agreed that the sentence was sufficient, and went on to state that the investigation did not indicate Hatch was involved in the production of the child pornography, nor was he found to have sexually abused any children himself.
Gerard added that the charges were “not egregious enough” for federal Court, and that Hatch would undergo drug/alcohol rehabilitation and sexual offender treatment while incarcerated.
Upon hearing from the State and the Defense (Hatch chose not to speak on his own behalf when given the opportunity), Judge McKay went on to say that this “is one of those difficult cases,” due to the fact that Hatch himself had not been found to have committed violent/sexual acts against children, but he apparently took enjoyment in viewing them depicted in the videos/photos.
Despite that no restitution was requested because the child victims in the videos/photos were never identified, Judge McKay stated that the children were “re-victimized” every time someone watches the videos/photos of them “at one of the worst moments in their lives,” and an appropriate sentence was necessary.
Judge McKay also solemnly added that the federal Court may have not taken the case because of the sheer volume of child sexual exploitation cases they have been dealing with recently, and not necessarily due to the severity of the acts.
The Court ultimately accepted the 7-12 year sentence, to be served concurrent to the other felony charge mentioned earlier, and he was also ordered to undergo drug/alcohol rehabilitation and sexual offender treatment while incarcerated.