Navy Sailor Violently Rapes 2 Infants, 4 Toddlers; Gets 210 Years In Prison

A 32-year-old Navy mechanic was sentenced to over 200 years in prison Tuesday for child pornography production offenses related to his sexual abuse of seven young girls in three states over the course of several years, prosecutors announced.

Randall Tilton was handed a 210-year prison sentence by District Judge Jeffrey Meyer in New Haven, Connecticut, after he waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty in December 2020 to sexually assaulting several minors and recording the assaults, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement released on the day of the sentencing.

The New Hampshire native was a machinist's mate first class stationed at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut, aboard the USS South Dakota, local newspaper The Day reported. He was arrested in December 2019 after he confessed to his crimes in an interview with Groton police, the DOJ said.

According to the statement, Tilton sexually assaulted seven girls who were between the ages of 4 months and 8 years old in Connecticut, New Hampshire and California starting from 2014. He also photographed and filmed many of these sexual assaults, with some of the videos being distributed on the dark web through the Tor network.

Tilton's electronic devices contained thousands of images and videos of the sexual abuse of other minors, which included sadomasochistic images of minors in bondage, sexual assaults on infants and sexual acts on the corpse of a minor, the DOJ said.

In one instance of abuse, Tilton took pornographic photos of a fellow Navy sailor's 4-year-old daughter, while in another he raped the 7-year-old daughter of a woman he met on a dating app and recorded videos of the assault, as per The Day.

Tilton, who appeared dressed in prison garb during the nearly three-hour-long sentencing at the federal courthouse in New Haven, delivered a statement in which he apologized to victims. Parents of several victims, speaking either in person or via Zoom, also submitted victim impact statements calling for the maximum possible sentence for Tilton.

"I beg of you, your Honor, don't ever let him out," the mother of one of the victims was quoted as saying.

Meyer followed prosecutors' recommendation that Tilton serve his sentence at Federal Medical Center, Devens, a federal prison in Massachusetts for male inmates requiring specialized or long-term medical or mental health care.

"Tilton systematically and repeatedly preyed upon young children for his own sexual pleasure," acting U.S. Attorney Leonard Boyle was quoted as saying in the DOJ statement. "[S]ince some of videos of his sexual abuse of one child will likely exist forever on the internet, he has ensured that she will continue to be victimized, every time those images are viewed by others, for the rest of her life."

"I must emphasize that this case is among the most disturbing and heinous series of acts that any law enforcement officer will ever encounter in their careers," Town of Groton Police Department Chief Louis Fusaro said. "It will stay with all of them and the victims for the rest of their lives."