1 year in jail, 10 years probation for ex-Co. Springs firefighter who shared child porn

(ARCHIVE July 19, 2019) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - A former veteran Colorado Springs firefighter who pleaded guilty to multiple felony child porn charges will spend a year in jail and 10 years on probation after sharing explicit images of underage children in a chat group called "Fun Times."

Robert Stambaugh pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of a child back in March, the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office confirmed. Friday, he was sentenced to one year in the El Paso County jail with work release and 10 years of probation.

He has since retired from the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

Stambaugh was part of an online group of sexual predators who openly bragged about assaulting other children.

The startling details of the child porn ring were released in an arrest affidavit when Stambaugh was taken into custody last October. We're choosing not to upload the documents due to the graphic nature of the contents.

According to the court documents, police in North Carolina obtained evidence of the online group on a messenger platform called Kik. A Department of Homeland Security investigator reached out to Colorado Springs police and forwarded that evidence after linking one of the users in the group to an address in the Springs.

CSPD got screenshots of messages being exchanged inside a Kik group called "Fun Times." Specific usernames were redacted in the arrest affidavit, but the document outlined the graphic messages and videos being sent in the group. At this point, it's not clear which messages were allegedly sent by Stambaugh.

On Sept. 25, one user bragged about meeting "a lot of young girls at the mall" and said, "they are willing to play." Another user responded saying he has "picked up girls from 12 and up," with another predator admitting to presently assaulting a 14-year-old.

The predators gave disturbing details of assaulting other children, including one user saying he committed sexual assault against a 10-year-old girl in a Walmart dressing room.

Throughout the first week of October, police screenshots showed multiple explicit images and videos of girls being sexually assaulted being shared in the group. Users responded with lewd comments about the victims.

Police started working on getting information on who the people were behind the digital masks in the Kik group. Starting in mid-September, summons requests were sent to internet service providers to get account information of the IP addresses that were connected to the group.

Investigators discovered on Sept. 27 that some IP addresses were assigned to Stambaugh's home on Waterside Drive in Colorado Springs, near Security.

Police learned that Stambaugh is the former chief of the Security Fire Department. That information matched an acronym in an email address linked to the Kik group.

Stambaugh also referenced his assignment to Colorado Springs Fire Department station number 8 in his Kik username, according to police documents.

Police executed a search warrant Wednesday afternoon at Stambaugh's home on Waterside Drive. He was the only one home at the time, and he said he wanted to talk to a detective on record with another special agent.

During that interview, Stambaugh provided usernames, passwords, and account information that matched the Kik information police already had. Stambaugh admitted to "engaging in fantasy talk online with others" for at least a year, which included uploading and downloading the sexually explicit images.

About an hour after the search started, investigators found a tablet in Stambaugh's garage, and it had two videos of "prepubescent females ... engaged in sexual intercourse with unknown adult males." That's when Stambaugh was taken into custody for third-degree and fourth-degree felony charges of sexual exploitation of a child.

He retired from CSFD in late October, after his arrest. He had been with CSFD since 1986.