Police launched an investigation into Gordon Gazaway, 53, after a young man he'd met on Craigslist came forward to say Gazaway was looking to have sex with boys whose ages were in "single digits."
A subsequent investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations division uncovered 1,700 images showing children being raped, urinated on and posed for the camera. Pleading guilty earlier this year, Gazaway admitted to sharing the photos online.
For his part, Gazaway, formerly employed by a Microsoft contractor, told the court he was addicted to pornography, but has changed his ways with the help of his church, his counselors and his new wife.
"I am working through issues with my therapist," Gazaway told the court, asking that he be sentenced to one year in prison. He went on to call his arrest "a sobering moment that made me realize the depths that I had fallen."
Police first investigated Gazaway in August 2005 after Redmond police came to believe Gazaway had downloaded child pornography on his home computer. That investigation fizzled out after police were unable to find him.
Gazaway again drew the attention of law enforcement in February 2009, when Gazaway responded to a Craigslist advertisement posted by someone describing himself as a "young" 18-year-old interested in older men.
"My kink is for younger guys " the younger the better," Gazaway responded to the advertisement. "So how young of young 18 r u really? Have you any younger brothers? Or others you might have played with in the past?"
The young man eventually asked Gazaway how young would be too young for him. Gazaway responded that he could go "very low, maybe single digits."
Gazaway went on to say that he'd "played with" a sleeping 7-year-old girl once, and that the girl "tasted very sweet." Shaken by the exchange, the 18-year-old contacted the police.
An associate of Gazaway later told investigators Gazaway "viewed 'liking children' as a sexual preference and tried to treat it as if it were normal," Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods told the court.
Investigators later learned Gazaway had paid to access a child pornography website, where he watched two men rape a child younger than 10, saw men urinating on a young girl and various other images of abuse.
Agents searched Gazaway's residence on Aug. 13, 2009, seizing computers containing more than 1,700 images of child pornography. Also seized were a series of photographs he'd taken showing scantily clad children; the boy and girl were later identified as an acquaintance's children.
Writing the court, Woods described the images as horrific and contended the children pictured will continue to suffer because the photos continue to circulate.
"The children in these images have suffered harm that cannot be quantified," Woods told the court. "They not only underwent the terrible abuse depicted in the images, but they have had to live with the fact that the depictions of their abuse are widely shared across the Internet by individuals for their sexual gratification.
"Law enforcement, despite its best efforts, likely will never be able to completely stop the circulation of these images, but rather can only stem the tide."
Through his attorney, Gazaway contended he was subject to "treatable mental health issues" that prompted the "voyeurism and addition to pornography, and asked that he be sentenced to one year in prison.
In a letter to the court, Gazaway said he has turned to his church for support while also participating in counseling.
"My conduct for which I have been charged was wrong. I take full responsibility," Gazaway told the court. "It has caused substantial distress for my family and cost me a job I really enjoyed."
Gazaway went on to note that he married following his arrest. At no point in the abridged letter, presented in a brief filed by his attorney, does Gazaway apologize to the child victims pictured in the pornography.
Gazaway's attorney went on to claim the non-pornographic photos his client had taken of children " including one photo of a girl's crotch " were simply evidence of his "voyeuristic character." He went on to deny that Gazaway was interested in molesting children.
"The psychological evaluations and polygraph examinations confirm that Mr. Gazaway has never had any sexual contact with any minors," defense attorney Russell Aoki told the court. "He is a voyeur. His addiction 
Sentencing Gazaway on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman went further than prosecutors asked, sentencing Gazaway to five years in federal prison. Prosecutors had requested a sentence three months short of the full term.
Upon his release from prison, Gazaway will be subject to 15 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $23,000 in restitution to an identified child victim whose image was recovered by Homeland Security Investigations agents on Gazaway's computer.
Check the Seattle 911 crime blog for more Seattle crime news . Visit seattlepi.com 's home page for more Seattle news.
Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com . Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk .
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