California certification revoked for ex-CHP officer convicted in child porn case
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- Timothy Allen Horwath was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years and one month in federal prison.
- Investigators found thousands of child sexual abuse images on his laptop and cellphone.
- California on April 9 formally revoked Horwath’s state law enforcement certification.
A former California Highway Patrol officer sentenced to prison in 2023 for possessing thousands of child sexual abuse images had his state law enforcement certification formally revoked earlier this month.
Timothy Allen Horwath, 56, of Rancho Cordova worked nearly 17 years as a CHP officer in the Redding area. On Thursday, Horwath was serving a 10-year and one-month sentence at Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, a federal prison in northeast Texas.
On April 9, Horwath was added to a list on the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training website. The list shows that Horwath’s state law enforcement certification was formally revoked last week. His last day as a CHP employee was on Nov. 12, 2019.
Horwath was arrested in December 2019 after a federal grand jury indicted him on child pornography possession charges. Horwath, who had already retired from the state law enforcement agency when he was arrested, was working as a CHP officer at the time of his offense, federal prosecutors have said.
Investigators found authorities found thousands of images depicting child sexual abuse on his cellphone and laptop. Filed court documents show that an undercover operation in Redding led authorities to discover a laptop inside his CHP duty bag in his garage containing “depictions of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
“Some of the files on the computer depicted extremely young children (as young as three and four years old) being forcibly raped and sexually abused by adult males,” according to the court documents. “Investigators also found a cellphone on Horwath’s person, which contained thousands of visual depictions of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
At the former CHP officer’s sentenced in September 2023, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez ordered Horwath to serve 10 years on parole after his release from federal prison.
