Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A Toledo man whose electronic devices turned up child pornography after detectives stumbled upon concerning text messages in another investigation was sentenced today to 77 months in prison.

When Wayde G. Rice, 58, was arrested in June, he told investigators the conversation about a girl with the person the FBI was investigating was just fantasy that he would never act on.

However, the retired firefighter pleaded guilty last month to four counts of first-degree possession of depictions of minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and one count of second-degree possession of depictions of minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Detectives with the Seattle Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force were assisted by members of the Toledo Police Department and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office in executing a search warrant at his home on the 1800 block of state Route 505 in Toledo on June 20. ICAC detectives had obtained a search warrant for his Yahoo account and traced email and messages back to him.

When the Seattle Police Department announced Rice’s arrest, it noted it believed Rice had offered his dog up online for sexual encounters.

His defense attorney Don Blair and Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Melissa Bohm made an agreed recommendation to a judge this morning in Lewis County Superior Court.

“As the court can see, he’s never been in trouble, ever,” Blair told the judge.

Rice told the court he was sorry he’d picked up the images.

Judge James Lawler went along with the recommended sentence of six years and five months and Rice was taken into custody at the end of the hearing.
•••

For background, read “Police: FBI case leads detectives to Toledo man who offered dog online for sex” from Thursday June 23, 2016, here

Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2016 at 6:48 pm and is filed under News briefs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.