Jason Lee Diaz jailed for encouraging a mother-of-two into accessing child exploitation material

A man has been sentenced after he encouraged a mother-of-two online to access child exploitation material – here’s how he was caught.

A man has been jailed after he urged an undercover cop, posing as a mother-of-two, to access child exploitation material on the internet.

Jason Lee Diaz was sentenced in the District Court earlier this month after he was found guilty of seven offences relating to 21 images of child exploitation material.

Diaz was charged with two counts of encouraging another person to use a website to deal with child exploitation material, one of disseminating child exploitation material, and four counts of aggravated disseminate child exploitation material.

Judge Michelle Sutcliffe said in sentencing that the offending occurred in August and September, 2020 when Diaz, 36, responded to an online advertisement posted by an undercover operative.

“All the offending occurred in online communications that you had with an undercover operative posing as a 37-year-old mother of two female children aged eight or nine and 12 years old,” she said.

“You communicated with the undercover operative believing you were interacting with a mother of two female children who had a sexual interest in children involving incest.

“You provided instructions on how to securely search for and view material on the dark web to reduce the risk of detection.”

Judge Sutcliffe said Diaz told the undercover operative to message on encrypted messaging service Signal and conveyed he was interested in the sexual abuse of children.

The man was arrested after talking to an undercover operative.

“Your communications conveyed that you were interested in and aroused by the sexual abuse of children with a preference for girls aged nine and above involving incest,” she said.

“On August 27, 2020 you sent 10 images to the undercover operative. Before sending the images you asked if the operative had found what they were looking for and you advised that you had been spending too much time (viewing child exploitation material).”

Judge Sutcliffe said the communication continued to September when Diaz sent a URL for a site on the dark web.

“You then told the person you were communicating with not to stay on the site for too long,” she said.

“You said that you were going to delete their number, that you did not want to be in that world again and you were giving them an outlet.

“You signed off saying ‘Bye, don’t hurt any kids’.”

Judge Sutcliffe said Diaz sent more images and videos on two additional occasions.

“You described having an addiction to pornography in the years leading up to your arrest and that you ceased viewing it after your arrest,” she said.

“That you had a sexual interest in this kind of material before your interactions with the operative is consistent with you responding to the advertisement and your knowledge as to how to access the material in a covert manner.”

Judge Sutcliffe said she took Diaz’s lack of criminal history into consideration.

Diaz was sentenced to two years and 10 months jail with a non-parole period of two years, three months and seven days.