Related Links  Breaking Technology News  Breaking World News  Breaking National News  Breaking Business News  Asia Report  AP's The Wire  Special Reports  Seven-Day Archives

Posted at 12:11 a.m. PST Tuesday, February 15, 2000

Tampico sentenced to prison

BY ALEXIS CHIU
Mercury News Staff Writer

A former high-level laser scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Monday on charges he used the Internet to procure and distribute child pornography in Texas.

Jonathan Michael Tampico, who worked on the ``Star Wars'' defense program in the 1980s, still faces charges in California state court stemming from a collection of pornography that police found in his former home in Fremont and a storage locker. It is believed to be the largest cache ever discovered in the region, according to Fremont police officer Dave Goodness.

``I feel extremely elated,'' Goodness said from Houston after attending the sentencing hearing. ``I'm glad this individual will not be in our community -- or anybody's community.''

Tampico, who was convicted of molesting a 10-year-old Livermore boy in 1990, had eluded California and federal authorities by leaving Fremont after his indictment on more than 50 counts related to child pornography.

When they caught up with him in 1998, authorities found child pornography in Tampico's Texas home, and also have charged two alleged accomplices. The ruling by federal Judge Vanessa Gilmore means Tampico, who turned 50 on Monday, must remain behind bars until he is 80, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Texas.

Tampico's California attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment, and his Texas lawyers could not immediately be reached.

Tampico's sentencing in Texas ended a long and circuitous pursuit by authorities that started with his release from prison in 1992, after serving two years for molesting the Livermore boy.

Tampico then tried to move to Washington state but was run out of town by local residents who found out about his criminal history.

He then moved to Fremont, where he caught the eye of Goodness.

The then-detective made dogging Tampico something of a personal crusade that included numerous surveillance operations. Goodness recalled following Tampico as he attended a children's choir competition in Oakland.

In September 1995, Tampico was arrested and jailed on parole violations. He was released just one day before Fremont police served a search warrant, and he left town before police had gathered enough evidence to arrest him again.

The evidence was in a Warm Springs storage locker Tampico had rented under an assumed name, Goodness said. There, police found ``thousands and thousands and thousands'' of photographs, some dating back to the 1950s, as well as videotapes and computer-generated material. All showed children -- some as young as 3 -- engaging in sex acts with each other and with adults, said Goodness.

Police believe Tampico acted as a ``gatekeeper'' for pornography belonging to pedophiles from around the Bay Area, Goodness said. Most of the adults in the pictures and videos were masked or had their faces hidden.

While no official number has been established, Goodness said there appeared to be at least 100,000 different child victims from around the world in the confiscated materials.

Tampico -- a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which advocates legalizing sex between adults and children -- allegedly also ran a Thai ``orphanage'' catering to pedophiles from all over the world in the 1980s, investigators said.

Investigators thought they had a breakthrough when Tampico was captured in 1997 in College Station, Texas, on the Fremont charges. But through a clerical error he was released from the Texas jail and once again vanished.

Tampico remained at large until he was featured on the television show ``America's Most Wanted'' in July 1998. Less than two weeks later, he was arrested in Bryan, Texas.

It was unclear Monday what course Alameda County prosecutors would take in their case against Tampico. What is clear, Goodness said, is that Tampico must spend the next three decades in a federal penitentiary.