VIRGINIA BEACH — A member of SEAL Team 1 will spend 27 years in prison after taking a video of himself molesting a 5-year-old girl.
Gregory Kyle Seerden, a 32-year-old petty officer who was stationed in San Diego as a member of SEAL Team 1, pleaded guilty to producing child pornography in September.
On Thursday, Seerden was sentenced to 27 years in prison with 25 years of supervised release. He was also fined $10,000 for producing images of himself abusing a child.
Seerden was arrested on April 4, more than two months after the Naval Criminal Investigative Service began looking into him, according to court documents filed in the Eastern District Court of Virginia.
The investigation began on Jan. 27, 2017 after a woman told authorities that Seerden sexually assaulted her while he was doing temporary duty at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach, court documents state.
NCIS got a search warrant for his iPhone 7. They searched texts, photographs, videos and phone calls. On the phone, police found 78 images of child pornography, including prepubescent males and females engaged in sex acts. Some of the pictures also included bestiality, court documents state.
Authorities also found four videos and a picture taken in early January 2017 that depicted a 5-year-old girl sleeping beside Seerden, whose genitals were exposed. The videos show Seerden masturbating beside the girl, and using her hands and lips for sexual acts.
Other evidence included pictures taken earlier that weekend that showed Seerden reading to two children in a bed. The clothing that he and one of the kids were wearing in those pictures matched clothing of the people in the pornographic video, according to court documents.
“Gregory Seerden victimized a child and used mobile technology to memorialize sexually explicit videos,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Tracy Doherty-McCormick said in a news release. “As this prosecution makes clear, the United States will seek to hold accountable anyone who sexually exploits our most vulnerable citizens.”
Seerden is also accused of sexually abusing another child in San Diego and recording it on an iPhone. That case was originally closed without prosecution in 2014 but is being reopened.
