A former Navy detective and El Cajon police officer sentenced earlier this year for using excessive force on a detained sailor at Naval Base San Diego pleaded guilty Thursday in San Diego federal court to a charge of conspiracy to distribute child sex abuse material.
Prosecutors filed sex-crime charges against Jonathan Christopher LaRoche, 42, shortly before he was set to report to prison in April for a 15-month sentence in an unrelated case for choking a handcuffed sailor to the point of unconsciousness.
According to a criminal complaint and a related search warrant in the sex-crimes case, LaRoche used an encrypted email server on the dark web to discuss sexually abusing a child and filming and photographing the abuse. He also allegedly expressed a desire to meet up with other children.
The court documents indicated that law enforcement agents believed the discussed abuse actually occurred and that LaRoche shared the files. Federal agents indicated they had strong circumstantial evidence — including delivery records for sex toys and children’s clothing that matched items LaRoche had discussed — but the agents were “not in possession of the specific files he uploaded on the darknet.”
As part of his guilty plea last year in the excessive-force case, LaRoche agreed to resign from his Navy position and never seek another law enforcement job. He also admitted to lying on his application to the Navy’s Criminal Investigations Division by concealing several prior excessive-force incidents that led to his resignation from the El Cajon Police Department.
The excessive-force incident occurred in November 2023 when LaRoche placed an intoxicated and handcuffed sailor in a carotid restraint for 17 seconds until the victim lost consciousness. He admitted that several minutes later, when the victim was sitting handcuffed to a bench inside a security building on Naval Base San Diego, he grabbed the sailor by the throat and pushed his head against a wall.
On Feb. 12, U.S. District Judge John Houston sentenced LaRoche to 15 months in federal prison, nearly double the time prosecutors had recommended, citing a need to send a strong message of deterrence to other police officers. LaRoche told the judge at that hearing that he was “unbelievably sorry for what happened.” He said he had untreated anger issues and post-traumatic stress disorder from serving three combat tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps and that he had addressed those issues, in part, with alcohol.
In March, just weeks before he was set to report to prison, special agents from Homeland Security Investigations arrested LaRoche in the new case, seizing a cellphone from him that they hoped would turn up evidence of the abuse allegedly discussed in the emails.
According to a search warrant for the phone, law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands identified LaRoche after obtaining a copy of the server for a dark web email provider that authorities described as a place “where child sex abuse material was being shared and distributed.”
One user of that email service purported to run a business that claimed to offer users tens of thousands of dollars or more in exchange for original images and videos depicting child sex abuse material, according to the search warrant. The business would solicit requests for specific material from some users and then commission other users to create that material.
Prosecutors alleged LaRoche exchanged dozens of emails with the business and another user in which he provided graphic details about sexually abusing a child, according to the criminal complaint. LaRoche allegedly sought payment for creating child sex abuse material, a plan that allegedly almost backfired when the business discovered his real identity and threatened to blackmail him.
Those communications occurred between July and October of 2023, according to the affidavit, a time period when Laroche was still employed as a detective with the Navy.
Laroche is slated for sentencing in December. The conspiracy count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years. As part of the plea, he will be required to register as a sex offender.
Staff writer Alex Riggins contributed to this report.