Tri-Cities blackjack dealer gets prison for sharing 20,000 images of child pornography
A Tri-Cities blackjack dealer has been sentenced to five years in prison for downloading, viewing and sharing pictures and video clips of child pornography.
Joshua P. Gault, 41, of Richland, allegedly amassed about 20,000 sexually explicit images over more than four years.
A number of the videos found on his computer and other electronic devices showed girls, age 4 and younger, being raped by adult men, according to court documents.
He also possessed one of the most downloaded series in the world, which is of a Tri-Cities girl. The child exploitation victim was 8 in the video clips he had, documents said.
In addition to the child porn, investigators found a homemade video of an adult woman with Gault.
The woman said she was unconscious in the video and may have been intoxicated at the time. She also reported that she did not recall the incident and or agree to sex or to record it.
Gault was charged in March 2017.
This February, he pleaded guilty in Benton County Superior Court to first-degree voyeurism and one count each of first-degree dealing in and possessing depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
He originally was charged with nine sex crimes.
Gault had no prior felony convictions.
He used to work at a Tri-Cities casino but reportedly lost his gaming license as a result of the conviction.
Gault told a community corrections officer as part of a presentencing investigation that he preferred not to get any time behind bars, but recognized a five-year term is just.
He was sentenced Monday by Judge Alex Ekstrom.
Downloading since 2012
Gault came to the attention of Richland police in late 2016 after a friend working on his laptop discovered between 50 and 75 videos with suspicious titles, court documents show.
The friend opened two of the videos and found young kids being raped.
He had been downloading and exchanging the images since 2012, documents said.
A number of the images were of a girl who was the subject of what’s known by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as the “Vicky” series, court documents said.
That girl, who now is an adult, was raped repeatedly by her Richland father more than 15 years ago. He made her dress up like a prostitute and bound her with ropes while he documented the abuse, which went on to become one of the most prolific series in child-pornography circles.
Detectives also linked Gault to an earlier investigation when an unknown person sent an illicit video — showing a preteen girl having sex with an adult man — to an undercover officer, documents said.
That image allegedly came from Gault’s IP address, and later was recovered during the forensic examination of his laptop.
In his interview with a community corrections officer this spring, Gault said he believed the children in the videos were the victims because “they didn’t want it.”
“He said he felt bad after the fact and said it is something he no longer is a part of,” according to the report.
He did not initially mention the adult victim of the voyeurism charge, saying he was under the impression that he did have consent to videotape himself having sex with the woman.
“After further discussion, he said he could see how she was a victim, but did not seem sincere in his comments,” the report said.