Katie 
Seattle, Washington: A former Bellevue District High School teacher was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday, June 21 after he had plead guilty to charges of production and distribution of child pornography in February 2022.
During the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Tana Lin described the case as every parent's "worst nightmare."
Following his release from prison 31-year-old Stuart MacGregor Hoffman will be subject to lifetime supervision and will be required to register as a sex offender.
Law enforcement became aware of Hoffman following a tip from the United Kingdom. Allegedly, someone had been sending images depicting the sexual abuse of children to a citizen there.
Once investigators determined that their suspect was Hoffman, they served a search warrant at his home on May 14, 2020 and took him into custody. The following day, in King County Superior Court, charges were filed against Hoffman including two counts of first-degree rape of a child and two counts of first-degree child molestation.
According to the charging documents, seen by The Seattle Times, Hoffman allegedly bribed the child, 11-years-old at the time the charges were filed, with food if he "would get through" the abuse. The charging documents alleged that the abuse began in at least 2016.
"The facts of those case are extreme even for crimes of sexual violence against children," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Christian Brown was quoted as saying in the charges.
Brown discussed the email correspondences between Hoffman and his contact in the UK, describing them as "chilling."
"In those emails," Brown continued, "this defendant admits to sexually abusing the victim, admits to recording those acts of sexual abuse, and even complains about our current COVID-19 pandemic as he no longer has free access to the minor victim. One of the more chilling emails is where the defendant tells another child [abuser] that he only recently started filming the sexual assaults and regrets not recording the sexual abuse of the minor victim sooner, when the victim was even younger."
On April 15, 2022, Hoffman was sentenced in King County Superior Court to 20 years in prison for rape.
According to the press release from the Western District of Washington the state and federal sentences are to run concurrently.
As disclosed during the federal case, Hoffman was found to possess seven videos depicting child sexual abuse as well as an additional 1,764 images. Through forensic examination, 283 of those images were found to show known child victims.
"Under the Child Pornography Assistance Act, Hoffman must pay a minimum of $3,000 to each known victim. In this case, the initial restitution figure is $108,000, and could go higher. Judge Lin is going to determine the full amount of the restitution at a later hearing."
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