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| Rod Bretches |
07/30/2012
By Jessica Maher
FORT COLLINS - Former Loveland Police Officer Rodney Bretches made a brief appearance in Larimer County Court on Monday and was issued a six-week continuance in his case alleging child pornography possession.
Bretches, 48, appeared before 8th Judicial District Judge Stephen Howard for the status conference. He was with his attorney, Derek Samuelson, and was granted a six-week continuance based on incomplete discovery.
He is due back in court for a disposition hearing on Sept. 6.
Bretches was arrested in late May after his colleagues at the Loveland Police Department searched his home and allegedly found videos and photographs depicting child pornography. Police began investigating the 19-year force veteran after a woman reported that he had secretly recorded her showering at his home and then shared it online.
Bretches faces a felony charge of sexual exploitation of a child, an allegation for which he could receive up to six years in prison if convicted, as well as two misdemeanor peeping charges that carry up to 24 months in prison upon conviction. At his last court appearance, Samuelson asked the judge to set the case over for a possible plea agreement.
Samuelson did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Until his mid-June resignation, Bretches had been on paid administrative leave from the Loveland Police Department.
There have been several cases over the last few weeks where someone in law enforcement is prosecuted for possession of child pornography. Unfortunately, they will join the other 760,000 men, women and children classified as "registered sex offenders" across the country. Their "crimes" range from urinating in public, sexing, exposure, false accusations by a soon-to-be ex-wife, angry girlfriend or spiteful student, viewing suggestive or abusive images of anyone under the age of 18, playing doctor, solicitation, Romeo & Juliet consensual sexual dating relationships, allowing a person 16 or so to perform oral sex on you at a party where everyone is drunk, rape and incest.
ReplyDeleteThe families of these law enforcement folks will also experience the collateral damage suffered by approximately 2,500,000 other wives, children, mothers, aunts, girlfriends, grandmothers and other loved ones who are harassed, beaten, ridiculed, home set on fire, signs placed in their yards, wives lose their jobs, forced to move, have flyers distributed through their neighborhood and the "cake topper" the teachers who print and post registry pictures in their schools to the embarrassment of the children of these registrants.....all because the family is trying to stay together and support someone who has paid their debt to society and just wants to be a productive citizen.
Vicki Henry
Women Against Registry dot com