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Sexual Offender
Conviction Records
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An Unofficial Site
Of United States Military
Sexual Offender
Conviction Records
Not Associated With The U.S. Military Or Government
Joshua Adam Smith
Staff Sergeant U.S. Air Force
Convicted Sex Offender
Child Rape and Producing Child Pornography
Name: Joshua Adam Smith
U.S. V. Smith
Sentenced: November 5, 2010
Plea: Guilty
Charges: Child rape and producing child pornography
Military Branch: U.S. Air Force
Listed In National Sex Offenders Registry? NO
Staff Sgt. Joshua Adam Smith, 27, was sentenced at court-martial to life in prison without possibility of parole for raping three young girls he baby-sat in the Kaiserslautern, Germany community.
His crimes were heinous; he ruthlessly sought out especially vulnerable victims by offering baby-sitting services online. Smith pleaded guilty to 18 counts of sexual abuse of the girls, ages 3, 4, and 7, including penetration with his penis, finger and a marker. He took photos and videos of the abuse, and also pleaded guilty to two counts of manufacturing child pornography, according to charging documents.
Smith recruited victims online as a baby sitter; posed as his own female reference; used his victims to make child pornography, possibly to distribute; and violated the most innocent victims, according to court testimony.
Military judge Col. Dawn Eflein announced her sentence — the maximum available, and what prosecutors had recommended — without commentary or explanation, as is always the case in courts-martial.
In an unsworn statement before sentencing, Smith told the judge, "I am disgusted by myself" and he said he "didn’t know how to stop it" on his own. Molesting his young victims became easier when the children didn’t tell on him, he said.
"It became easier to justify for the next time when nothing happened," Smith said as he cried during his statement.
Eventually one of them did tell.
The mother of the 7-year-old child says that she met Smith online at ramsteinunderground.com. He offered to babysit for her after she posted an advertisement seeking a babysitter and she rebuffed him. Then, someone named “Yvonne” contacted her via an online “chat,” saying she should consider using her baby sitter — Joshua Smith. She took the advice, not knowing that Smith was using “Yvonne” as an alias to provide references for himself.
Smith also lied online about working at the child development center while he was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, according to prosecutors.
Smith pleaded guilty to 18 criminal counts, including anal and genital penetration and penetrating the children with objects including a Sharpie marker and a plastic tube. He also pleaded guilty to photographing and videotaping his victims, while posing them in a sexual manner and performing sexual acts on them.
Officials did not reveal whether they suspect Smith of having molested other children at Ramstein or on other bases where he has been stationed, including Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and Offutt.
Air Force records indicate that Smith joined the Air Force in 2001 and arrived at Ramstein in December 2007.
Smith served as a communications and navigation systems technician said he grew up in a military family, the second oldest of six children. He said his father, a career Navy man, was often absent from home and his mother had trouble managing the large family. Smith said that he became involved in "sex play" with his siblings at the age of 10. He has been "sexually obsessed with young children for a while," he said.
