Daniel Schenk, left, appeared in Pacific County Superior Court with attorney Shane O’Rourke to enter a guilty plea on Nov. 19, 2021, after which he was jailed. Formal sentencing was delayed until last week, when the judge doubled his jail time.

SOUTH BEND — One week after Superior Court Judge Don Richter dismissed new charges against Daniel J. Schenk, on May 20 the disgraced former Ocean Park Elementary teacher was sentenced to three more months on his original case.

Schenk was present in court with attorney Shane O’Rourke.

The high-profile case has been in the spotlight for over a year and a half while O’Rourke and the prosecutor’s office hashed out a plea deal. The final result was a 90-day sentence, including credit for Schenk’s time served immediately after his October 2020 arrest at the school by the Washington State Patrol after an investigation that included the FBI.

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‘I regret wholeheartedly what I have done and what I have brought upon the community, and I apologize to my family for putting them through so much.’

Dan Schenk

It didn’t take long for O’Rourke and Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Daniel Crawford to begin verbally butting heads in court last Friday, resulting in Richter cautioning that the state needed to be careful not to undercut an order of specific performance surrounding the formal sentencing.

In response, Crawford requested that the court accept the agreement as written after requesting the court review evaluations that Schenk completed to reach the agreement, signed off on by Tracey Munger, a former chief criminal deputy prosecutor.

Apologetic words

Schenk was also given a chance to speak before Richter handed down his sentence. This was the first time since being arrested that he made a substantive public statement. He has moved away from the area and spent the majority of his court hearings appearing via speakerphone on Zoom through O’Rourke.

“First of all, I would like to apologize to the victims that were in these images, and I understand, and I know that even though I had no direct contact with them, [my viewing] perpetuates a market for such materials and can cause more victims,” Schenk said.

“I don’t want that, and I have been receiving counseling for the last couple of years, for which I am thankful, and since the arrest I am happy to say that I have not viewed and have no opportunity to do so and do not want to,” he added.

Schenk added that he will continue receiving treatment to get better and welcomes a new counselor provided by the Washington State Department of Corrections. He said he hopes to never go into the child-porn realm again and stay out of the “pit.”

“I want to apologize to the court and to my community in which I lived, and worked and grew up. I regret wholeheartedly what I have done and what I have brought upon the community, and I apologize to my family for putting them through so much,” Schenk said.

Richter is blunt

Before handing down his sentence, Richter addressed the courtroom with a warning that he would take a little more time to make a longer record during the hearing. Richter usually keeps his comments to a minimum unless the case calls for more.

“I want to make clear what is driving the court’s decision and what’s not driving the court’s decision,” he said. “This case and the allegations contained specifically about the types of images were horrific. The number of images and probable cause statements and number of the other images in other pleadings and draftings and then additional charges that were brought is some of the most disturbing material this court has ever [reviewed in written form].”

“These are not victimless crimes; these children have been victimized in the making of this pornography. These children will continue to be victimized with the knowledge that these images are out there and can never be destroyed. Their victimization is something that will be for others to view and derive pleasure from for the foreseeable future. So the idea that this is a victimless crime or that it is a crime in the past when it was made is not true,” he added.

Legal limitations

Up to the sentencing hearing, new top Prosecutor Michael Rothman and Crawford have been critical of the original 90-day plea agreement as being “completely absurd.” Crawford has been vocal that he felt the agreement did nothing to protect the community and was “a slap on the hand.”

The contention and plea agreement appeared to weigh heavily on Richter as he explained to the courtroom and made record of what power and limitations he faced under the circumstances.

“What this court can consider, quite frankly, is a sanitized version that has been stipulated so there was no trial, there was no evidence that was proven without a reasonable doubt. What this court is faced is the knowledge that the allegations far outweigh what was actually stipulated to in a plea agreement, and that’s what is in front of this court, and that’s the behavior that this court can sentence on,” Richter said.

“By making this record of everything else that is out there, I am trying to explain to whatever person is reviewing this record in the future, for whatever purpose that may be that the court is trying to take immense pains to distinguish between the allegations and what has been alleged and the other hearings that this court has sat through from the material that this court can actually base a sentence on,” Richter added.

After reviewing the material he’s allowed to consider, including the pre-sentencing investigation and evaluations that led to the 90-day sentence recommended by the former second-in-command of the prosecutor’s office, Richter called the recommended sentence “insufficient.”

“I am sentencing Mr. Schenk as per the pre-sentencing investigation recommendation of six months,” Richter said. “And again, I find the record that I am able to base that decision on is sufficient to justify that sentence. If there was a different record in front of this court, we would be having a different conversation right now.”

Richter gave Schenk two weeks to report to Pacific County Jail to serve his remaining time.