A 25-year-old Taunton man will spend the same amount of time in federal prison as he’s been alive after sexually abusing an 18-month old toddler in his care and distributing child pornography.
U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin on Tuesday sentenced Cody Mercure, 25, of Taunton, to 25 years in prison to be followed by 15 years of supervised release on the charges of sexual exploitation of children and distribution of child pornography, to which Mercure pleaded guilty in January.
The U.S. Probation Office had computed a maximum sentence of 50 years for the two charges, according to the government’s sentencing memo. The defense sentencing memo asked for 15 years.
“It is challenging to find the words that capture just how abhorrent and destructive this conduct was. This man sexually exploited an innocent 18-month-old child — a defenseless toddler who, at the time, was still in diapers — and recorded the abuse to watch again and again for his own sick gratification,” said U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins.
Prosecutor Elianna Nuzum said in her sentencing memo filed April 19 that “It is difficult to overstate the seriousness of the defendant’s crimes and their effects on his victims.”
She continued in her memo to say that the victims depicted in child sexual abuse material distributed by Mercure are currently between the ages of three and 33 years old.
“And although these is no evidence that Mercure distributed the videos of his abuse of Minor A,” which is how the unidentified toddler is described in the court documents, “he distributed videos of the sexual abuse of other children. These videos — and the impact statements submitted by some of the children depicted in them — provide a stark reminder that the victims of this defendant’s crimes are real, live children, who were raped or otherwise exploited solely for the pleasure of adults involved in the abuse or who obtain sexual gratification through watching and distributing it.”
Mercure graduated from Dighton Rehoboth High School in Dighton three years before the toddler he abused was born, according to the date on the resume included in the defense sentencing memo.