Former Central Kentucky detective gets 30-year prison sentence in child porn case
A former Paris police officer was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Friday for engaging in sexually explicit misconduct involving a baby.
Christopher Livingood was sentenced in federal court in Lexington after pleading guilty May 31 to one of the seven charges he was indicted on, according to federal court records. The minimum sentence within the statutory guidelines was 15 years. The maximum was 30 years.
Livingood was federally charged after he used a messaging app to have conversations with a woman in Indiana about how he wanted to perform sexual acts on an infant, according to court records. He communicated with the woman for about a year and four months.
During that span in 2018 and 2019, Livingood sent the woman, Diana Roe, naked images of the infant’s lower half, according to court documents. Livingood also possessed additional images of child pornography, according to court documents.
Livingood also told Roe he was having sexual contact with the male infant and a little girl, according to the court record.
Police arrested Roe in 2021 on multiple charges of distributing and receiving child pornography. Telephone records led authorities from her to Livingood, according to an affidavit from Jeffrey Tyler Chelf, a Lexington police officer on an FBI task force.
In addition to the prison time, Livingood was ordered to pay $6,000 in restitution.
There is no parole in the federal court system, so he will have to serve at least 85 percent of the 30-year sentence.
Upon release, Livingood will be under supervised parole for life. He must also participate in a sex offender program while incarcerated and never have contact with his victim.
Livingood’s lawyer, Christopher Spedding, asked Chief U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves for leniency.
Spedding said Livingood had a good track record in life outside of these offenses. Livingood had no previous criminal offenses and had worked as a narcotics detective with the Paris Police Department, though he left that job and had worked as a plumber since 2010, according to a court record.
However, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin M. Roth, pushed for a lengthy sentence.
“The fact that Livingood was in a position of trust, someone who should have protected and cared for the victim, makes the impact even more significant,” the prosecutor said in a sentencing memorandum.
Livingood spoke to Reeves during Friday’s court proceedings and asked him for leniency, saying he wanted a chance to fix his family following the charges and conviction.
But the mother of the victim told Reeves in court that she wanted Livingood to receive the maximum sentence. That is what Reeves imposed.
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 3:25 PM.
