A former Green Valley Fire Department captain has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for sharing photos of child sex abuse with an undercover federal investigator.
Nathanael Dougall, 39, of Tucson was sentenced this week to 90 months behind bars for messaging the photos online to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Dougall worked for the fire department prior to his arrest in November 2018, the office said in a March 25 news release.
He was sentenced March 24 in U.S. District Court in Tucson after previously pleading guilty to distribution of child pornography.
Dougall sent the photos on an online messaging app, which he also used to “engage in sexually explicit chats” — with a member of a U.S. Department of Justice task force fighting child abuse and exploitation, the news release said.
It was Dougall’s use of the internet that put him in the sights of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative DOJ launched in 2006 that combines the efforts of federal, state and local authorities “to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet,” the news release said.
The organization also works to “identify and rescue” children whose illegal images are being circulated online.
Upon release from prison, Dougall will be under supervision for the rest of his life, and must undergo sex offender treatment and register as a sex offender,” the news release said.
He also was ordered to pay restitution to “several victims depicted in the child sex abuse images he possessed and distributed.”
