NORFOLK, Va. – A former U.S. Navy SEAL was sentenced today to 27 years in prison, 25 years of supervised release, and fined $10,000 for producing images of child sexual abuse.
According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, the investigation into Gregory Kyle Seerden, 32, began after a woman reported to base security at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach that Seerden sexually assaulted her. After NCIS agents seized and searched Seerden’s iPhone, a digital forensic examiner discovered several images of child pornography. Further analysis confirmed 78 images and four videos of child pornography. Agents later learned that Seerden took the videos with his iPhone, and that the minor victim was a five year-old child known to Seerden. The videos graphically depict Seerden sexually abusing the child while the child sleeps.
“Gregory Seerden victimized a child and used mobile technology to memorialize sexually explicit videos,” said Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “As this prosecution makes clear, the United States will seek to hold accountable anyone who sexually exploits our most vulnerable citizens.”
Seerden is also charged in San Diego for conduct stemming from the summer of 2014. That case is a reopening of a 2014 NCIS investigation that did not result in prosecution at the time. As described in court documents, the allegations in that case involve another minor known to Seerden, and the recording of sexual abuse involving the child on an iPhone, and are thus strikingly similar to the acts Seerden pleaded guilty to here.
“Instead of being a protector, Seerden was a predator who attacked a sleeping five year old child,” said Cliff Everton, Special Agent in Charge of the NCIS Norfolk Field Office. “He is the antithesis of every value the military services hold dear.”
