RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA – A former school custodian who sexually abused a child over a period of several years and uploaded sexually explicit images to the Internet has been sentenced to 23 years in federal prison for his conviction on child pornography charges.
“The magnitude of such harm to [the victim] is difficult to appreciate and cannot be overstated,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court.
U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips sentenced Matthew Frazer, 39, of Yucca Valley, on Friday.
Frazer pleaded guilty in July to one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. In a plea agreement, Frazer admitted filming the molestation of the victim, who was between 4 and 8 at the time, and uploading the films onto the internet to share with others.
According to court documents, the images have been found in the possession of more than 250 people who collect child pornography.
Prior to his arrest on January 31, Frazer was employed as a custodian with the Morongo Unified School District. The victim did not attend the schools where Frazer worked, officials said.
The investigation into Frazer was initiated last year after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children provided to the FBI a series of pornographic images depicting a young girl being sexually abused, according to authorities.
For several months, investigators attempted to identify the adult male in the images, and the FBI identified Frazier as the suspect earlier this year.
Frazer admitted filming sexual explicit images of the young female victim from 2008 through 2012. He specific admitted making a video in October 2009, when the victim was 6 years old, and again in 2010 when she was 7.