A 20-year-old Vancouver man, who was originally charged as a teenager, was sentenced to six months in jail and to undergo sexual deviancy treatment in two separate cases stemming from an investigation into child sexual exploitation imagery.
Leonardo Shuji Ruiz-Idera was granted a special sex offender sentencing alternative, which allows him to spend most of his sentence out of custody in a treatment program, for the more serious case involving three counts of first-degree child molestation. The length of the program is two years.
All but six months of a 98-month prison sentence was suspended, according to Deputy Prosecutor Erik Podhora.
Clark County Superior Court Judge John Fairgrieve also imposed a year of suspended time in a case with amended charges of cyberstalking and two counts of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
Ruiz-Idera pleaded guilty to the charges in both cases in February and has been jailed since that time.
He was originally arrested on suspicion of 10 counts of first-degree possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He was 18 at the time and a high school student.
The Vancouver Police Department’s Digital Evidence Cybercrime Unit began investigating March 29, 2018, after receiving a lead from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding a Dropbox account containing 363 files of suspected child sexual exploitation imagery, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Dropbox indicated that the account’s user name, “Leonardo Ruiz-Idera” was using a Google email address to upload the files, the affidavit states.
A search warrant was served on the account, where 41 folders were found containing video and photos of child sexual exploitation imagery, depicting girls ages 4 to 13, court records say.
Investigators then served a search warrant at Ruiz-Idera’s residence May 16, 2018, and contacted him the next day. He reportedly admitted that the Dropbox and email accounts were his.
During that investigation, Ruiz-Idera admitted to touching a child, court records say. The abuse happened when he was between the ages of 12 and 14, and the victim was reported to be 6 to 7 years old.
Podhora said the amended charges in the possession case were the result of an agreement in both cases following discussion between the prosecution and defense, and included input from law enforcement and the victim.
