A 24-year-old man who was arrested in Naval Air Station Whidbey Island barracks for possessing child pornography in the summer of 2020 is facing time in prison.
Christopher J. Precopia pleaded guilty in Island County Superior Court April 8 to possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the first degree.
Under the terms of the plea bargain, charges alleging that he distributed child porn were dismissed. Both the prosecution and defense will recommend a sentence of one year and one day in prison.
Precopia will also have to pay a $1,000 “depictions fine,” as well as other mandatory fines and fees. Under state law, people who are convicted of possession or dealing in child porn have to pay $1,000 for each charge related to each image. The money goes to a state child rescue fund.
After prison, Precopia will register as a sex offender for 20 years. He will have to complete three years of sexual deviancy treatment while being supervised.
A judge allowed Precopia to move back home to Texas while the case was pending and he will live there after getting out of prison. He voluntarily returned to Washington to get a psycho-sexual evaluation, which was taken into account in the plea bargain, according to the prosecution.
In July of 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report from Kik, an online messaging application, that someone in the Oak Harbor area had sent images of child pornography to another user. Through a search warrant, the detective traced the account to Precopia. He was living in barracks at the time.
The seven video files he shared depicted girls as young as 5 years old being raped by adult men, court documents show.
At the time of his arrest, the Navy was in the process of discharging him in connection with an earlier case in which he transmitted nude photos without the victim’s consent, according to a report by a detective with the Island County Sheriff’s Office. He is no longer in the Navy.
In 2017, Precopia was living in Texas and was arrested by police on suspicion that he had assaulted his ex-girlfriend and sliced her chest with a box cutter. A selfie he had taken with his mom, however, proved that he was innocent. The case made international news.
