The former NPR science editor who pleaded guilty to downloading videos of young children being raped will not have to spend any time in prison, a federal D.C. judge ruled Thursday.
Cheers, tears and claps erupted in the packed courtroom when U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle announced she was going to spare David Malakoff from the six to eight years in prison that he was facing based on federal guidelines.
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“I say, ‘What further pound of flesh is needed to achieve the goal of punishment?'” asked Huvelle.
In explaining the exceptional step of sentencing below the guidelines, the judge said Malakoff had already thrown away a successful career and has to live with the stigma of being a sex offender for most of the rest of his life. But the strongest argument for the lesser sentence, Huvelle said, was that Malakoff had been raped as a 9-year-old boy and he had looked at the child pornography over five hours last year to relive his own rape.
Malakoff admitted to downloading eight videos on his National Public Radio laptop while in Pittsburgh. The images, which contained violent sexual acts against children younger than 12 years old, were viewed over about five hours. Technical workers at NPR discovered them last summer after Malakoff took the laptop to them for repair.
Huvelle ordered Malakoff to five years probation, a fine of $5,000, 600 hours of community service, and he will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years.
Before the judge’s decision, Malakoff, 46, apologized to the court for watching the videos.
“I am ashamed. I am horrified. Most of all because I know their story. I have made their lives worse. I am so sorry,” Malakoff said. He said he will be haunted forever by the images of the children being raped, “their distant eyes, their blank faces.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bridgette Crafton read a statement by a girl who was raped by her father as a 10- and 11- year-old and whose videos Malakoff downloaded on his NPR laptop computer. The girl, who is now 19, described the horrors of her childhood. She said the pain she suffers will be with her forever.
“Each person who has found enjoyment in these sick images needs to be brought to justice,” she wrote. “They are dangerous and even though I don’t know them, they are hurting me still. They have exploited me in the most horrible way. Please bring them to some real justice.”
Huvelle ordered Malakoff to write a letter about his own experience to the young girl.
“You have more in common than you think or she thinks,” Huvelle told Malakoff.
