A former Bath County sheriff’s deputy in federal court Tuesday pleaded guilty to production of child pornography, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
Joshua Preece, 40, of Morehead, is scheduled to be sentenced on the federal charge in February.
He faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. Preece also faces child pornography, third-degree rape and first-degree sexual assault charges in state court. Those charges were filed in 2020. The federal case started in April of this year.
The cases arose after Preece, a deputy at the time, answered a call about a domestic dispute between a mother and daughter in November 2018, according to court records. An investigator testified that Preece told the mother and daughter they would have to be apart for the night and offered to drive the daughter, a minor, to her friend’s house, according to the documents.
The girl later told police that Preece stopped his police cruiser at a barn, touched her and had her touch him. He then allegedly asked for the girl’s contact information and persuaded her to send him sexually explicit images later that night via Snapchat.
The girl told her mother about the abuse the next day, and the mother contacted authorities, according to the court record. Aaron Gabhart, a state police detective, testified at a hearing in April that investigators found numerous messages on Preece’s cellphone — dating back to November 2017 — to and from people who said they were between 13- and 17-years-old, according to court records.
Preece allegedly continued trading messages with them even after hearing they were teenagers, and the conversations turned “sexual and coercive,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett said in a detention order. Preece pretended to be a teenage boy or a teenage girl to coerce teens to send him explicit photos.
He had no prior criminal history and had been a law enforcement officer for more than 10 years with the Bath sheriff’s office and the Kentucky State Police.
Preece also owns a jewelry shop in Morehead, according to court documents.
Kentucky.com
