A man who sought videos and images of children being sexually abused and who prosecutors say wanted child rape to be legalized has been sentenced to 7 to 9½ years in prison.
Benjamin Naylor, 32, of Deer Park, possessed some of the most disturbing images and videos that investigators said they have ever seen. In addition to that, according to prosecutors, he described in an online chat a desire to "meet up with a perv dad and his boy for sex."
"He does not think child rape should be criminalized," Assistant Prosecutor Elyse Deters said at Naylor's sentencing Aug. 10 in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. "In fact, he wants it legalized."
Naylor was working as a scheduler at the Christ Hospital Health and Aging Center when he was confronted there
in December by a Texas-based civilian group that monitors the internet for child predators. The group, called Predator Poachers, had been posing as a teen online and communicating with Naylor.
Police were called to the hospital clinic, and a Hamilton County task force that investigates internet crimes against children began an investigation.
Detectives found on Naylor's cellphone multiple images and videos of children being sexually assaulted and abused. According to court documents, one video involved an infant who was described as being about 2 or 3 months old. Others showed children between the ages of about 4 and 8.
In one, a child can be heard screaming, asking the attacker to stop.
The images and videos were part of a chat on an app with a person who had the user name, "Active Perv."
Judge: Images, videos 'documentary evidence' of sexual abuse
Cincinnati police Detective Mary Braun, who is part of the task force, said during the sentencing that the material found on Naylor's phone was "some of the absolute worst I have ever seen."
Before imposing the sentence, Judge Wende Cross told Naylor that the images and videos were "documentary evidence of the sexual abuse of real children."
Sharing those images and videos online only serves to encourage people to create them, Cross said, and victimizes the children over and over again. She said Naylor was part of an ongoing cycle of harm.
"You caused real harm to children who you never met," she said.
Embarrassment is 'indescribable'
Naylor's attorney, John O'Shea, said Naylor initially did not appreciate "the enormity" of just viewing material that he wasn't involved in creating. He also described Naylor, who has autism as well as developmental disabilities, as immature and naive.
O'Shea said Naylor tends to say things he believes someone wants to hear, not necessarily what he truly is thinking. He said Naylor was "not someone who is appropriate for incarceration" and had asked Cross to sentence him to probation.
The embarrassment Naylor feels, O'Shea said, "is indescribable."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Man who prosecutors say wanted child rape to be legal sentenced
