Former Sacramento-area gymnastics coach sentenced for child porn after fleeing country

A former Sacramento-area youth gymnastics coach was sentenced to eight years and one month in prison on Thursday for possession of child pornography after fleeing the country to dodge the charges, prosecutors said.

Derek Swede Godfrey, 49, of Rocklin was extradited from Australia in 2016 to be brought up on charges of possessing more than 400 videos and 5,000 images depicting the sexual abuse of minors, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.

Godfrey’s Rocklin home was subject to a law enforcement search on Oct. 5, 2006, that discovered child pornography on his computer, according to the release.

The next day, Godfrey fled to the Netherlands, where he held dual citizenship, and he was indicted by a Sacramento grand jury in his absence on Jan. 25, 2007, prosecutors said.

In 2012, Godfrey was arrested on unrelated charges in Perth, Australia, where he also coached youth gymnastics, and was extradited by Australian officials in April 2016, according to the release.

Godfrey pleaded guilty to the Sacramento charges in March 2018, according to court records.

District Judge Morrison C. England Jr., who sentenced Godfrey, said he was particularly troubled by the fact that Godfrey had been caught with child pornography in Australia in 2012 while his charges were pending.

Godfrey is being held at the Sacramento County jail. The Bee previously reported that he had requested to serve his prison sentence in the Netherlands. Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Thursday that the decision on where he would be imprisoned would be made in a few weeks.

This story was originally published September 27, 2018 at 3:54 PM.