A former Newport Seaside gynecologist pleaded responsible Wednesday, Feb. 19, to federal fees for possessing greater than 200 youngster porn photos on a number of digital units.
Mark Albert Rettenmaier, 72, of Laguna Hills pleaded responsible in U.S. District Courtroom in Santa Ana to 2 counts of possession of kid pornography. He’s free from custody on $600,000 bond.
Rettenmaier will face a most sentence of 20 years in federal jail for every rely throughout a sentencing listening to scheduled for Aug. 6. Prosecutors have really helpful that he be sentenced to not more than 5 years in jail.
Rettenmaier’s license has expired and he’s not presently eligible to observe drugs in California
On June 7, 2020, Rettenmaier uploaded 15 youngster porn photos to an Adobe cloud-based storage system, in keeping with the plea settlement. A minimum of 4 of the photographs depicted a prepubescent minor and minor below the age of 12 partaking in sexual conduct, prosecutors stated.
On July 22 that 12 months, legislation enforcement officers seized Rettenmaier’s cellphone and two laptop computer throughout a search of his house.The cellphone contained two youngster pornography photos and one of many laptops contained a toddler porn video. Moreover, 209 photos of minors engaged in sexual exercise had been discovered on the opposite laptop computer, the plea settlement states
One of many photos on the laptop computer depicted a minor partaking in bondage constituting “sadistic and masochistic” sexual conduct, prosecutors stated.
Rettenmaier admitted he knowingly downloaded the kid porn photos and video from the web and saved them on his private units, in keeping with the plea settlement.
Rettenmaier, who was the founder and head doctor of Southern California Gynecologic Oncology, cared for girls with gynecologic malignancies and weird or sophisticated benign pelvic problems in Orange County for greater than 35 years, in keeping with his biography,
Beforehand, in a separate case, Rettenmaier was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2014 on two counts of possessing youngster pornography.
The indictment was handed down after technicians at a nationwide Greatest Purchase facility in Kentucky, generally known as Geek Squad Metropolis, found what prosecutors described as a photograph of a unadorned, prepubescent lady whereas fixing Rettenmaier’s damaged pc and notified native FBI brokers.
Rettenmaier’s attorneys challenged the legality of the pc search, main U.S. District Decide Cormac J. Carney to carry hearings, throughout which the protection might name witnesses to discover the connection between the FBI and Greatest Purchase.
Throughout these hearings, a number of Greatest Purchase workers testified that they often run throughout what they consider to be youngster pornography in the midst of their repairs. The workers stated they believed they’d a “legal and moral” obligation to report their findings to legislation enforcement.
An FBI agent acknowledged paying some Greatest Purchase workers $500 for among the ideas, however denied asking them to do something exterior of their regular work duties. Carney in the end discovered that the Greatest Purchase techs did nothing flawed.
The kid pornography fees in opposition to Rettenmaier had been dismissed after Carney threw out a lot of the proof as a result of of “false and misleading statements” made by an FBI agent.
Carney additionally discovered {that a} request for a search warrant for Rettenmaier’s house failed to notice the picture discovered by Greatest Purchase technicians that led to the investigation was in an space on his pc the place deleted recordsdata are stored, so he might not have been conscious of it.
The decide additionally centered on the testimony of the FBI agent who first examined Rettenmaier’s pc, and who acknowledged throughout courtroom testimony that the photograph the techs discovered didn’t “by itself” represent youngster pornography. The agent described the picture as depicting an underage lady on her knees on a mattress carrying a choker-type collar.
Whereas the picture might have been “distasteful and disturbing,” the decide decided it was not youngster pornography however as a substitute youngster erotica, “the viewing of which is not unlawful,” Carney stated throughout a listening to.
Employees author Sean Emery contributed to this text.
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