‘Humans make mistakes,’ defendant argues before getting 50 years in child porn case
As he contemplated the possibility of receiving a 50-year prison sentence in federal court in Sacramento on child pornography charges, Jesse Earl Davenport wanted to be sure the judge knew a few things about him.
“I am not a bad person,” Davenport wrote in a sentencing memorandum to U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. “I make mistakes.
“I made a mistake here, and will pay for that mistake for the rest of my life. Nobody will punish me for my crimes as harshly as I have punished myself. I will never stop regretting what has happened.
“But I am human. Humans make mistakes. We also learn from those mistakes, as I have.”
The arguments had little effect.
In an extremely rare and remarkably contentious in-person hearing in Sacramento federal court Thursday, England sentenced Davenport to 50 years in prison, the second time he has done so since Davenport’s conviction by a jury in 2016.
“Mr. Davenport, you are an extremely intelligent man, and that’s what makes you dangerous to the public,” the judge said after an hour of sparring with Davenport, who was acting as his own lawyer.
The hearing, one of only a handful conducted in Sacramento federal court since the COVID-19 pandemic shifted court sessions to Zoom hearings more than a year ago, was held in person because Davenport insisted he wanted to face sentencing before the public, England said. England said Davenport was wrongly attempting to retry the case rather than face sentencing.
“Nothing has changed,” England told Davenport as he continually tried to re-litigate parts of the jury trial in which he was convicted. “You’ve been convicted. And the 9th Circuit has affirmed that. ...
“We’re not trying this case all over again. I’m sentencing you today.”
But Davenport persisted, sitting at the defense table in an orange Sacramento County Jail jumpsuit and arguing that the former prosecutor in the case, as well as his convicted co-defendant, lied about him.
If he could not get a new hearing, Davenport insisted, he needed more time to prepare for sentencing.
“Their whole case is leaky as a sieve,” Davenport said, arguing he is being punished for the actions of a woman who abused a child 3,000 miles away while he was homeless in California.
Davenport, 45, is described in court papers as a victim of horrific abuse as a child and a fan of “master-slave” online role-playing games.
He has acted as his own attorney since 2015 to fight charges he induced a Connecticut woman into producing a video of her molesting a 2 1/2-year-old girl she was babysitting, then had her email it to him.
“I never intended to hurt anybody in the first place,” Davenport wrote in court papers using his current legal name, Draco John Flama. “It was not my intent to break the law.”
Federal prosecutors have a different view, calling him a “recidivist child-sex predator” whose October 2016 conviction stands out among the worst in the nation for examples of “lurid, willful and disturbing” conduct.
“The conviction was Davenport’s third sex offense against a minor between November 2010 and August 2013,” prosecutors wrote to the judge. “Remarkably, Davenport committed those three sex-crimes against three minors in three states over three years, while also serving 1.5 years in prison for the second crime.
“He was on parole from his second sex-crime conviction when he committed this one, his third.”
The sentence marked the second time England has imposed a 50-year prison term on Davenport, and reflects the remarkable twists the case has taken since Davenport was charged with child pornography offenses in December 2013.
Court records detail inappropriate sexual conduct dating back to 1999, when prosecutors say Davenport approached a mentally disabled woman in a bookstore to show her nude photos from a magazine.
He has a misdemeanor sex crime conviction out of Kansas from May 2010 involving a 17-year-old, court papers say. (Davenport contends the contact was consensual, and that the age of consent in Kansas is 16.)
Davenport also has a November 2010 felony conviction involving a 17-year-old in Chico who he originally met online when she was 15.
He was sentenced to three years in the case after telling the judge the girl agreed to marry him, according to a 2011 Eureka Times-Standard story.
“I know that doesn’t sound very appealing, but still,” he said at the time.
Davenport was paroled after serving 1-1/2 years, court papers say, and 14 months later was charged in the pending case.
“Thus, Defendant committed three separate sex crimes against three separate minors, in three separate states: Kansas, California, and Connecticut— all in three years and three months’ time, including the 1.5 year he was in prison,” prosecutors wrote.
A jury trial in Sacramento included testimony from Angela Martin, a Connecticut woman Davenport met online in 2013 on a website called MocoSpace that is “dedicated to master-slave relationships,” court papers say.
Martin, who was sentenced in Connecticut to 17.5 years in prison, testified Davenport induced her to make a 51-second video of her abusing the little girl, saying he “kept asking and asking, and I gave in.”
“I was weak, and I did it anyways,” she testified.
But Davenport argued he never induced her to make the video, and noted she sent it to someone else before emailing it to him.
Authorities discovered the video after Davenport’s parole agent checked on him and found him in possession of an internet-capable cellphone. The agent seized a digital storage device from Davenport, who subsequently cut off his GPS ankle monitor and traveled to Redding before being arrested.
Court papers say the video was found on the digital storage device, and Davenport was convicted in October 2016. England subsequently sentenced him to 50 years in prison, but an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent it back for resentencing because probation officials had used 2016 sentencing guidelines in calculating a recommended sentence rather than 2012 guidelines.
The difference was essentially meaningless, and England noted he could have sentenced Davenport to 90 years.
But prosecutors recommended a 50-year sentence to “deter future criminal acts, while also permitting him hope of someday earning his release from custody.”
Davenport fought to the end, filing an “emergency” motion asking the judge to delay sentencing, then argued England should recuse himself from the case because Davenport believed the judge was biased against him and favored the former prosecutor, Andre Espinosa.
“The court has blindly accepted everything that the former prosecutor has said and has never once paused to listen to me or require him to prove his multiple false allegations,” Davenport wrote.
England rejected that argument Wednesday night, noting Davenport had “demonstrated significant animosity” toward Espinosa, including outbursts in court that included Davenport declaring, “Andre, your desperation is showing” and “Shut up, Andre.”
Davenport also tried objecting to prosecutors’ recommendation for a 50-year sentence, arguing that he did not molest the toddler himself and that, at most, he deserved 15 years.
“I messed up, BIG time,” he wrote to the judge. “But I do not deserve to spend the rest of my life in prison for it...
“A 50-year sentence would give me a release date of 2056 and would make me 81 years old when I get out of prison. With the average life span of a federal prison inmate of 75 years, 50 years is more than likely a life sentence.
“Even if it is not, at age 81, I would not be able to fully enjoy any type of freedom.”
He also argued in court that he is a victim of “gender-based discrimination” by getting a 50-year stretch while co-defendant Martin — who he noted had produced the video and abused the child — got just over 17 years.
“The court has never listened to me or given me a fair shot,” Davenport complained.
Although he represented himself, and generated a stack of legal arguments and citations in his own defense, Davenport was aided by Assistant Federal Defender Tim Zindel, who sat by him Thursday and said after court he did not believe the sentence was fair.
“It just doesn’t make sense that he would get three times what the defendant who made the video got,” Zindel said.
This story was originally published April 1, 2021 at 11:36 AM.