Ex-RNC staffer gets more than 12 years in prison in child porn case

A former GOP staffer and Republican National Committee aide who admitted to being part of a ring that traded child pornography involving babies was sentenced Thursday to more than 12-and-a-half years in prison Thursday.

Ruben Verastigui, 29, received the 151-month sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta during a hearing held via video conference, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C.

Verastigui was a digital strategist for the RNC in 2017 and 2018, working on social media advertising for political committees backing former President Donald Trump, according to Verastigui's LinkedIn page. The digital strategist also worked for the Senate Republican Conference and for a nonprofit group called Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. An anti-abortion activist originally from San Antonio, Verastigui spoke at the March for Life in Washington in 2013, according to a video clip posted online.

Mehta's sentence for Verastigui was seven months more than the minimum of the range of 144 months to 188 months permitted under a plea deal he struck with prosecutors last year. When Mehta accepted the guilty plea last July, he indicated he was not binding himself to that range and might reject the deal, returning the case for trial. But at Thursday's court session, the judge agreed to a sentence within those parameters.

Mehta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, delivered the sentence amid renewed attention by Republican lawmakers to sentences in child pornography cases. Claims that incoming Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was too lax in her sentences for such offenders dominated the questioning of her by GOP senators at her confirmation hearings last month. Jackson was confirmed to the high court Thursday in a 53-47 vote and will take her place there once Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer.

At the time of Verastigui's guilty plea, he admitted to possession of 152 videos and 50 images of child pornography and to receiving and distributing sexual depictions of children. He has been in custody since his arrest last February and is currently jailed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

According to an affidavit submitted in connection with Verastigui's arrest, he sought out images of rape of children during an online chat in 2020. Prosecutors said Verastigui also fantasized online about killing children while abusing them.

The former GOP aide was snared in an investigation that focused on a ring of at least 18 people trading child pornography via a chat group on an unnamed website and appears to have zeroed in on at least one other political staffer in Washington, according to court filings.

In November 2020, a Trump appointee at the Commerce Department, Adam Hageman, was arrested on charges he shared a child pornography video and commented on sexually abusing children. Hageman appears to have been set to enter a guilty plea last April, but it is unclear from public court records whether that hearing was ever held.

The probe was conducted by detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Youth and Family Services Division, Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, the Northern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and Homeland Security Investigations, according to a statement issued by D.C. police last year.

The sentencing submissions by the prosecution and defense in Verastigui's case are absent from the court's public docket and appear to be under seal. Such secrecy is unusual for the federal court in Washington where he was sentenced.