Former California Navy detective sentenced for choking sailor faces new child exploitation charge

A former San Diego-area Navy detective who was sentenced to federal prison last month for choking a sailor unconscious and lying about his misuses of force while an El Cajon police officer is facing a new charge related to the production of child sex abuse material.

Federal agents arrested Jonathan Christopher LaRoche on Wednesday in La Mesa on a charge of attempted production of images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The 41-year-old Spring Valley resident, who was due to report to prison in about three weeks to serve a 15-month sentence in his previous case, made his first appearance on the new charge Thursday in San Diego federal court.

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According to a criminal complaint and a related search warrant, LaRoche used an encrypted email server on the dark web to discuss sexually abusing a child and filming and photographing the abuse, and also expressed a desire to meet up with other children. The court documents indicate that law enforcement agents believe the abuse occurred, that LaRoche shared the files and that they have strong circumstantial evidence — including delivery records for sex toys and children’s clothing — but the agents are “not in possession of the specific files he uploaded on the darknet.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego confirmed LaRoche’s identity.

An attorney who represented LaRoche in his previous case said he was not representing him in the new case, and it was unclear Thursday evening if LaRoche had an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

LaRoche pleaded guilty last year to federal charges of making a false statement and depriving an individual of his rights under the color of law. He admitted that while applying in 2022 for a detective job with the Department of the Navy’s Criminal Investigations Division, he made false statements under penalty of perjury about his reason for leaving the El Cajon Police Department and his disciplinary history related to multiple instances of improperly using force.

He also admitted that in November 2023, once he’d secured the job with the Navy, he placed an intoxicated and handcuffed sailor in a carotid restraint for 17 seconds until the victim lost consciousness. He admitted that several minutes later, when the victim was sitting handcuffed to a bench inside a security building on Naval Base San Diego, he grabbed the sailor by the throat and pushed his head against a wall.

On Feb. 12, U.S. District Judge John Houston sentenced LaRoche to 15 months in federal prison, nearly double the time prosecutors had recommended, citing a need to send a strong message of deterrence to other police officers. LaRoche, who agreed as part of that plea deal to never seek another law enforcement job, told the judge that he was “unbelievably sorry for what happened.” He said he had untreated anger issues and post-traumatic stress disorder from serving three combat tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps and that he had addressed those issues, in part, with alcohol.

Houston ordered LaRoche to report to federal prison on or before April 21.

But on Wednesday, special agents from Homeland Security Investigations arrested LaRoche in the new case, seizing a cellphone from him that they hope will turn up evidence of the abuse allegedly discussed in the emails.

According to a search warrant for the phone, the new case is unrelated to his previous case. Instead, law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands identified him after obtaining a copy of the server for a dark web email provider. That email provider was identified as a place “where child sex abuse material was being shared and distributed,” an HSI agent wrote in the warrant.

One user of that email service purported to run a business that claimed to offer users tens of thousands of dollars or more in exchange for original images and videos depicting child sex abuse material, according to the search warrant. The business would solicit requests for specific material from some users and then commission other users to create that material.

Prosecutors allege a user believed to be LaRoche exchanged dozens of emails with the business and another user in which he provided graphic details about sexually abusing a child, according to the complaint. The user believed to be LaRoche allegedly sought payment for creating child sex abuse material, a plan that allegedly almost backfired when the business discovered his real identity and threatened to blackmail him.

Authorities allege the dark web email user believed to be LaRoche sent emails with links to files that he claimed were child sex abuse material, but the links no longer worked by the time law enforcement agents accessed the email server.

But authorities subpoenaed records from FedEx and Amazon that showed deliveries to LaRoche’s Spring Valley home for items that matched items the dark web email user allegedly discussed purchasing and using in videos and photos. The dates of those deliveries allegedly also matched information from the email conversations, according to the warrant and complaint.

Authorities also alleged that the dark web email user believed to be LaRoche disclosed numerous identifying details about himself and the alleged victim that agents matched to LaRoche. And the names of people identified in the blackmail messages allegedly matched real people in LaRoche’s life, according to the complaint and warrant.