A former IU administrator who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography received a two-and-a-half year sentence Monday but will likely face no jail time.
Jon Riveire, who worked in the Office of Student Ethics from 2011 to 2015, will be eligible for home detention for the first year of the sentence and will then be on supervised probation.
Riveire was arrested in May 2015 after a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led to police finding more than 30 images of child pornography on his computer. He was fired immediately.
He was charged with six counts of possessing child pornography and pleaded guilty in November to one of those counts. The state, believing one charge would be sufficient, dropped the rest.
During Monday’s sentencing, Riveire, speaking often of his family, testified.
“I have put them through a version of hell,” he said.
He focused on his two young children, whose lives he said will never be as good as they could have been had he not committed the crime.
He choked up as he told Judge Marc Kellams about how his children are too young to understand what is happening, but that he knows he will someday have to tell them about his pornography addiction.
“I’m dreading the school assignment that says, ‘Google your parents and write a research paper on your parents,’” he said.
He and his wife are in the process of divorcing, and he is moving out of their home in advance of his name being placed on the sex offender registry, he said.
“Speaking as a parent, would I want my children to go to someone’s house to play where there may or may not be a sex offender in the home?” he said. “I would be concerned about that. I think any parent would.”
He still has rights to unsupervised visitation of his children, though a precautionary “safety plan” from the Department of Child Services orders he not be around them while they’re naked, he said.
Kellams noted a recent psychosexual evaluation affirmed Riveire’s assertion he is “owning” his guilt, and while all child pornography offenders are by default labeled with a high risk of reoffending, the actual evaluation put Riveire at a relatively low risk of reoffending.
Riveire told Kellams he has been attending counseling sessions for three weeks, and his counselor believes he’ll require one and a half to two years of treatment to rehabilitate his pornography addiction.
When attorney Joshua Radicke, representing the state, pressed Riveire on his rehabilitation and his “owning” of the charges, Riveire stopped short of admitting to being aroused by the images of children.
“I understand the charges in the sense that I understand why I’m being charged and being held responsible,” he said. “I do not find sexual gratification from looking at children.”
Still, Kellams commended Riveire’s commitment to his family and the support he has received from friends and family, some of whom had previously appeared on his behalf. In his estimation, Riveire appeared to be “a nice man” who made a mistake, Kellams said.
“What I see here is a human being who’s failed,” he said, speaking directly to Riveire, who sniffled and nodded along. “And you’re a perfect example of the scourge of pornography on our country.”
He went on to call pornography addiction an “insidious disease” and told Riveire he’d have to surrender fully to treatment, rather than just comply, to be rehabilitated.
“There are a lot of people in your position who will deny everything and say they don’t have a problem and almost believe it,” he said.
Though the guilty plea on this charge would generally warrant a sentence of less than a year, Kellams said he wanted Riveire to be on probation until he could complete counseling. Kellams handed down the longer sentence.
Riveire continued to nod as Kellams read the sentence’s stipulations, including registering as a sex offender. When he reached an order prohibiting contact with minors under the age of 16, Kellams said Riveire’s children would be excluded from that order, and for a moment, Riveire put his head in his hands.
“Jon, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you,” Kellams said at the end of the sentencing. “I hope you can get on with your life.”
