Ex-cop gets 60 years for child porn
Also must pay $529,050 in restitution
Staff writer
A year and a half after former Marion County deputy and Burns Police Chief Joel Justice Womochil, 39, was arrested on child pornography charges, he was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in federal prison at Petersburg, Virginia.
He was ordered to serve two consecutive 30-year sentences for conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child. He pleaded guilty to the charges Oct. 9 in return for dismissal of other charges.
He also was ordered to pay $529,050 in restitution to children who were victims in the case.
The prison in Petersburg has programs including counseling for sexual offenders.
In Womochil’s plea agreement, he admitted conspiring with Indiana resident Denise Sandmann for Sandmann to produce a video of herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct with a 3-year-old child.
Sandmann sent the videos to Womochil, who saved them on his computer on or about March 26, 2019.
He also admitted having conspired with Council Grove resident Jessica Quave to produce at least three videos of her engaging in sexually explicit conduct with a child younger than 6 years old.
Those videos were produced and sent to Womochil on or about April 13, 2021, while he was a Marion County deputy.
He agreed to forfeit all electronic equipment used during the crimes and pay $166,350 restitution to the child in Quave’s videos and not less than $3,000 restitution to children involved in other charges filed against him. The parents of the child in the first video did not seek restitution.
He will have to pay special assessments of $10,200.
Womochil was arrested Aug. 15, 2023, by El Dorado Police while he was working as a Butler County jailer.
He originally was charged Aug. 16, 2023, in Butler County with 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The following month, 21 additional counts, including 10 counts of aggravated Internet trading of child pornography, were filed.
The case soon was taken up by federal prosecutors. Butler County charges were dismissed a year ago.
He was charged in federal court in October, 2023, with knowingly receiving child pornography and possessing child pornography. Additional charges were later added.
Womochil was a Marion County deputy from March, 2020, until November, 2022, when he resigned in a dispute over trading county-owned equipment to someone outside the agency for equipment that had been stolen. He resigned Aug. 8, 2023, as police chief for Burns.