A federal court in San Diego has sentenced a former Marine to 360 months in prison and 20 years of supervised release for sexually assaulting a 3-year-old child and inviting others to abuse his victim.
"The world is safer for children now that Michael Hamby has been sentenced to prison for his heinous crimes," said Michael Pierce, field director for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
Hamby was found guilty of molesting a child under the age of 3, announcing that his victim was available to others, and expressing his intention to engage in sexual play with other minors between the ages of 4 and 8.
Elijah Alexander Vazquez, an accomplice of Hamby, is scheduled to be sentenced this week on similar charges.
According to federal prosecutors in San Diego, Hamby's crimes were first discovered by NCIS in Okinawa, Japan, and later investigated by NCIS at Camp Pendleton.
A federal government sentencing memorandum says Hamby was "a man with two very different identities."
"To the public and members of his own family, Hamby was a husband and stepfather who honorably served his country as a Marine. In addition, he was a beloved son and brother. Upon completing his first enlistment in 2013 with an honorable discharge, he re-enlisted. Throughout his career, he served two deployments," the memorandum read.
But the same memo says the former Marine has "a predatory dark side."
"He is someone who handcuffed and sodomized a three-year-old girl. He is someone who announced that this child was available for others to abuse her Hamby is a man who was willing to engage in sexual play with two boys, aged four and eight, in the hope that the sexual play would be 'fun'," the memo read.
The former Marine had a history of domestic violence. According to documents, he assaulted a wife with strangulation. He was also emotionally abusive when he burned that wife's property and sent her pictures of her destruction.
The crime of seduction of a minor has a minimum tax sentence of ten years in prison. It also imposes a $250,000 fine.
