Former Pediatric Nurse Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for Distribution and Receipt of Child Pornography

            A former pediatric intensive care nurse from Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to seven years in prison and ten years of supervised release for distribution and receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.  BRYAN W. CORBITT, 44, of Washougal, Washington, was arrested on February 16, 2012, following an investigation by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  CORBITT had been sharing sexually explicit images of children over the Internet via a file-sharing program on his computer.  Two of the people he chose to share images with were undercover law enforcement agents, each of whom observed thousands of images of child pornography available for sharing on CORBITT’s computer.  At sentencing U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton said, “These are serious crimes.  These children are victimized, and in your spare time, you persisted in victimizing them in your own way.  That’s reprehensible.”

            “This defendant betrayed the trust of the medical profession and the children and families he cared for in the pediatric intensive care unit,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.  “He tried unsuccessfully to hide his crime from law enforcement and from his own family.  It is fully appropriate that as part of his supervised release he will have to undergo sex offender treatment.”

According to records filed in the case, CORBITT had used “wiping” software on his computer in an effort to hide his interest in child pornography.  Nevertheless, a forensic examination of the computer found 65 image files of child pornography from the allocated space of Defendant’s computer, and another 400 or so images of child pornography from the unallocated space.  The forensic examination also revealed that CORBITT used a separate media storage device to store additional images and videos of child pornography.  That device has not been located.  CORBITT had images of young boys with catheters inserted into their penises mixed in among his collection of child pornography, images that were clearly taken in a hospital setting like the one where he worked for ten years.  Many of the parents who contacted the case agent after news of CORBITT’s arrest were grieving their children’s deaths; many were parents of severely disabled children.  To learn that CORBITT had been arrested and charged with crimes involving the sexual exploitation of innocent victims caused additional anguish.

“It's always disheartening when we arrest someone who was in a position of trust for possession of child pornography,” said Brad Bench, special agent in charge of HSI Seattle. “This case is particularly egregious because the defendant, as a pediatric nurse, had a fundamental duty to protect children, but instead he chose to exploit them through his consumption of Internet child pornography.  Every day, HSI special agents work tirelessly to seek justice on behalf of child sex abuse victims by tracking down consumers and producers of child pornography.”

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Marci Ellsworth.