No jail time for former El Paso County deputy who molested boy

After a 10-month-long investigation, former El Paso County deputy and District Attorney’s investigator Donald Leigh Fair, 44, will not face jail time after molesting a young boy.

Fair was sentenced to 10 years of intensive supervised probation Tuesday morning and is required to register as a sex offender for taking a photo of the victim sleeping –who is a family relative–and then discussed potential distribution on the web.

“The image that became part of this case was being discussed on a chat room, online, in the dark web. Tracing the IP addresses back to where they go,” said George Brauchler, the 18th Judicial District Attorney.

The involvement of Interpol, Homeland Security, and local detectives traced that conversation and other child pornography to Fair’s home computer.

The 5th Judicial District turned over the case to the 18th Judicial District since Fair worked as an investigator in El Paso County.

Prosecutors were unable to seek prison time since Fair had a clean record, making this incident his first offense.

“The legislature has given us no favors in the area of sex assault on children. [If] you want a better fix for law enforcement, you convince the legislature to put mandatory prison on the table so that no adult can commit sexual assault from a position of trust on a child and face the potential of probation. You give us that tool we’d have a different outcome.”

Donald Fair’s first arrest was back in August of 2017. For the next decade, Fair will be supervised and monitored by a probation officer trained to handle sex offenders.

“In this particular circumstance, the tradeoff between being able to argue for prison after traumatizing a child even more than they have been to this point, there is no perfect answer but for this case, for this moment, for these facts this is justice,” prosecutors said.

Fair will also undergo therapy, won’t be able to use a computer, and cannot have any kind of contact with the victim.