A U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer from Center Line convicted of distributing child pornography amid his agency’s participation in a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration was sentenced to six years in federal prison Thursday.
Scott Rocky, 58, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg six months after admitting to using peer-to-peer software to obtain and share pornographic images of children last year, and prosecutors believe attempts were made to hide and delete child sexually abusive materials from a computer found in his Macomb County home. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped one charge of possessing child porn, which carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Rocky, who worked for Customs and Border Protection for more than 17 years, pleaded guilty six months after he was arrested on child pornography charges and accused of possessing videos of children and teens engaged in sex acts. He has since resigned and retired.
Under terms of the plea agreement, Rocky was required to spend at least five years in federal prison. Prosecutors wanted Rocky to spend more than 11 years, the bottom of the guideline range of potential punishment, because he accepted responsibility, has been undergoing sex offender treatment, maintains the support of family and is fighting tage four cancer.
“Rocky allowed an insatiable sexual interest in children — and the gratification he derived from witnessing their abuse — to override every oath he had taken and every obligation his badge imposed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nhan Ho wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Rocky’s lawyer, Arthur Weiss, argued his client is not a pedophile and is unlikely to re-offend.
“It is a classic, very isolated, very dumb mistake,” Weiss told The Detroit News. “I think, over time, (the government) came to realize it was an extremely short period of time between family issues, health issues and mental issues.”
Rocky’s lawyers portrayed their client as a trustworthy and charitable man who spent 40 years serving, at various times, with the National Guard, Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection.
The criminal case developed in spring 2025 after an FBI agent signed into BitTorrent, a program that lets users share images and videos anonymously.
The FBI agent identified a computer with 4,141 files that were believed to be child pornography. The FBI agent discovered that an electronic device with a unique Internet Protocol address shared 530 files with the FBI agent’s undercover computer.
According to Rocky’s plea deal, he admitted to having fewer than 600 images.
“…Many of the files appear to depict real minor children between the ages of four and 10 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct…,” the FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.
Investigators later linked that device to Rocky and raided his home.
rsnell@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Border agent Scott Rocky sentenced in child porn case in Metro Detroit
Reporting by Robert Snell, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
