Former soldier Theodore Franz Stoermer caught posting ‘extremist’ content to Twitter

A former soldier caught with terrorist propaganda videos and child abuse material while living at Lavarack Barracks told police he had become “desensitised” to the content.

A FORMER soldier who was caught with ISIS propaganda videos and child abuse material while living at Lavarack Barracks told police he had become “desensitised” to the content.

In Townsville District Court on Monday, 23-year-old Theodore Franz Stoermer avoided serving any jail time, after pleading guilty to three counts of possessing child exploitation material and three counts of possessing tainted property.

The court heard that on June 3, 2021, the defence force military policing unit searched Stoermer’s room and belongings at Lavarack Barracks, after being told he had posted extremist content to Twitter.

Islamic State In Syria (ISIS) propaganda videos, as well as 702 child abuse images and videos depicting male and female infants to children aged 16 were found on hard drives, a USB and laptop.

Crown prosecutor Andrew Walklate said of the child abuse images and videos, 11 fell into the most serious category – with some of the videos and images being computer-generated cartoons.

The court heard one of the ISIS propaganda videos showed a young boy aged about six fatally shooting a man in the head.

A ballistic dart gun was also found in Stoermer’s belongings – which he was later fined $1000 for in Townsville Magistrates Court.

In an interview with police on August 14, 2021, Stoermer said he had become “desensitised to things that might seem shocking to other people”.

Mr Walklate said Stoermer told police he had been “looking for the next thing, something that (is) even worse than the one before,” and that he had wanted to have the files because it was “bad.”

“ (Stoermer) said he knew what he was doing was bad (and) sick and twisted stuff, but he had become accustomed to it, and that he had (sought help),” Mr Walklate said.

Stoermer had told police the boy in the ISIS video had seemed “enthusiastic” in the video, and had probably “wanted to make his parents proud”.

Mr Walklate submitted that an 18 month jail sentence with immediate parole eligibility be imposed.

Defence barrister Travis Schmidt said Stoermer was a “recluse” and “oddball” who would spend a lot of time online, and had fallen down the wormhole of far-right political pages and extremist content after the 2016 United States presidential election.

He said Stoermer had diverted to darker corners of the internet, and seen a lot of extremist material including combat footage which desensitised him.

Mr Schmidt told Judge Anthony Rafter that Stoermer would save thousands of “nondescript” photos to his computer each day, and that the child abuse material had been in those files.

He submitted Stoermer’s young age, lack of criminal history and participation in a Queensland Police diversion program were exceptional circumstances which would prevent him from serving time in custody.

No psychological report was tendered to the court, and it was submitted that Stoermer had undergone two sessions in the diversion program.

He was ordered to complete three years’ probation, with a 15 month jail term also wholly suspended for three years.

Originally published as Former soldier Theodore Franz Stoermer caught posting ‘extremist’ content to Twitter