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Sex tape finder avoids jail time
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Darrin Tuck
Guilty plea to conspiracy to obstruct a public officer resulted in suspended sentence
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Updated: Sep. 26, 2008 | 5:06 p.m.
The man who found a child pornography tape that led to a nationwide manhunt for Chester Stiles avoided jail time Tuesday during a sentencing hearing in Nye County.
A Nye County judge gave Darrin Tuck a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation. Tuck in February pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct a public officer, a gross misdemeanor.
He was facing a felony count of possession of child pornography.
"He's happy to get this behind him and to clear his name," said Chris Rasmussen, Tuck's attorney.
If convicted of the child pornography charge, he could have been required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Tuck told authorities he found the videotape in the desert in May but didn't turn it over to authorities until September. He told authorities he was scared to turn the tape over.
Authorities said the video showed Stiles sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl. Discovery of the tape triggered a multi-state search for Stiles, who was arrested on Oct. 15 in Henderson during a routine traffic stop.
The girl in the videotape was later found to be safe and living with her mother in Las Vegas. An attorney for the girl told the media she has no memory of the incident.
Stiles is facing more than 20 felony charges in connection with the videotaped sexual assault of the girl and the molestation of another girl. He is scheduled to go to trial in mid-April, but the case probably will be postponed.
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Herb,
I never quite believed he found the tape either. To be honest, I always kind of felt that it was given to him from a weird drug buddy, maybe he bought it or stole it from someone else. Those people run in weird, creepy circles. He deserves jail time just for keeping it, watching it, and showing it to his friends. This is much deeper than we are told, I'm sure!
Herb,
I'm with you, I've never bought into the story that he just happened to find the tape on the ground to begin with. I'm thinking that any tape laying around the desert for any length of time wouldn't play anymore. Even if he isn't lying, he still deserves the child porn charges and should be on the sex offender registry. He's earned it.
This article didn't mention it, but I saw on the TVnews that Tuck was/is a crystal meth user. Why do I have the feeling that Tuck, Stiles, the molested girls mother, and the sickos who watched this tape at viewing parties were all part of the crystal meth using community?
This just goes to show we need tougher laws against tweakers. We need to get them all off the streets. Crystal meth users are rotten to the core, they have no morals or values.
One more thing, if he truly was afraid that he would be incriminated by turning in the tape, he could have simply mailed it anonymously to any police station or law enforcement agency and have been left out of the investigation entirely. This man is sick in his head, and I would like to encourage the voters of Nye County to vote this judge out of office next term.
He didn't turn in the tape. He played it for all of his friends for months until one of them went to the police to report what he had seen. The police went to him, otherwise he would still be holding viewing parties. What sicko would show this to their friends instead of turning it over immediately to the police? The kind that belongs in jail and on our list of sex offenders. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near him. Any normal person would have immediately contacted the police without any fear whatsoever.
There's a lot of misinformation in this blog. Darrin Tuck did not turn the film over to police as some people believe. The pervert was showing it off to all his friends. Fortunately, one of them was not such a sicko pedophile pervert, (just one of them) and reported this to the police. Had it not been for this one person, this sicko would still be holding viewing parties for his pervert friends. He should have gone to jail for promoting child pornography. You people that praise him for doing the right thing are sorely mistaken. He should be listed in Nevadas sex offender registry as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't want this pervert living in my neighborhood.