A Schweinfurt, Germany-based soldier will spend nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty at a court-martial last week to stealing another soldier’s laptop computer and keeping pornographic videos of children on his own computer.
Judge (Lt. Col.) Robin Hall sentenced Pvt. Floyd Latta, 34, of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, to four years in jail and ordered him to be dishonorably discharged during his Nov. 15 trial in Würzburg, Germany, according to a trial summary released this week by the 1st Infantry Division’s Staff Judge Advocate’s office.
Latta’s jail term was cut to 45 months under the terms of a plea bargain.
The chief prosecutor, Capt. Zahid Quraishi, said Latta kept several videos and images on his laptop computer that depicted children being sexually abused, beaten and kept in bondage. The pictures showed at least six different child victims, and some of them were used in prosecutions of the people who made them in the United States, Germany and elsewhere, according to the case summary.
Latta also admitted stealing another soldier’s laptop computer from an office at Conn Barracks, the 1-4 Cavalry's home base, between April 5 and April 8. He deleted all of the personal and work-related files, forcing the soldier to buy a new computer, the summary said.
