Ex-Providence priest sentenced to prison for 'egregious' crimes. What to know.
PROVIDENCE – Calling his crimes egregious and an enormous violation of the trust to the parishioners he once served, a federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a former Roman Catholic priest to serve six years in prison.
“I’m strongly inclined to give you more than that,” U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith said in sentencing the Rev. James Ward Jackson, 68.
Smith exceeded the five-year term agreed to Assistant U.S. Attorney John McAdams and Jackson’s lawyer, John Calcagni, in sentencing Jackson, a former pastor at St. Mary’s Catholic Parish on Broadway, to 72 months for receiving child pornography.
The judge said he was troubled by the case and drew upon his memory of a priest from his childhood committing similar offenses and being sentenced in state court to 25 years.
“I can’t understand how it happened to him. I can’t understand how it happened to you,” Smith said.
Jackson arrest at the church rectory
Members of the Rhode Island State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Jackson in October 2021 during a search of two rooms inside St. Mary’s rectory, where he lived.
Authorities at the time said that an East Providence detective assigned to the task force had identified a computer IP address from the rectory as being used to share files of child sexual abuse material on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network.
They said the IP address had been “used multiple times between September 26 and October 17, 2021, to view and share videos consistent with child sexual abuse material.”
In a sentencing memorandum filed this week, McAdams detailed 12,000 images and 1,300 videos found to be in Jackson’s possession featuring 190 prepubescent girls, some engaged in sadistic and masochistic abuse.
McAdams read letters from some of the 18 victims who submitted impact statements to court.
They told of being plagued with anxiety about others viewing their abuse and recognizing them and of the videos recirculating on the internet for others perpetrators to see.
“'It is like the abuse is still happening,’” McAdams read.
Smith observed that, to him, Jackson’s offenses seemed worse than other child pornography cases.
“It’s abusive. It’s designed to hurt,” McAdams agreed.
Jackson allegedly accessed more material in Kansas
Jackson has been held at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center since last October, when authorities determined that he violated the conditions of his pretrial release by accessing more child-sexual abuse material while living in Kansas.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan ordered Jackson detained after a separate child pornography investigation led police to search a home in Leawood, Kansas, where Jackson was staying with relatives.
Jackson has not been criminally charged in Kansas, though the police findings have been referred to the Johnson County District Attorney’s office, according to Overland Park police.
Jackson’s prior ministry
The Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, former bishop of the Diocese of Providence, removed Jackson as pastor and prohibited him from sacred ministry following his arrest.
He was installed as pastor of St. Mary’s Parish about three months before his arrest. He previously spent more than a decade as pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Littleton, Colorado.
He is a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter North American Province. A lawyer for the organization said, “Until Fr. Jackson was arrested, the Fraternity of St. Peter was not aware of anything in his words or behavior that could give rise to suspicion concerning such actions. Crimes of this type are execrable, and Catholics should pray for the victims of pornography and work to put an end to its industry.”
Jackson told the court that he was glad that he had been arrested and stopped from accessing the material. He said he was deeply ashamed and very sorry for accessing the evil “filth.”
“I will be an outcast in society,” he said.
Smith ordered Jackson to undergo sex-offender treatment and submit to unannounced searches of his electronic devices during his five years of supervised release following his sentence. He was ordered not to have contact with children under age 18 and not to loiter in areas where children congregate.
McAdams and Calcagni will determine the restitution Jackson will pay to his victims in the coming weeks.
Jackson had faced a minimum of five years in prison and up to 20 years at sentencing.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Former RI priest James Jackson sentenced to prison for child porn
