Four hours after no-showing for his arraignment on 72 child sex and pornography charges in a Wyoming district court on Tuesday, John C. Smallbone was arrested on a fugitive warrant in San Francisco.
The 38-year-old Douglas man told Judge F. Scott Peasley through his public defender that he feared for his life if he were to show up for his plea hearing Tuesday.
In the meantime, it seems he was on his way to San Francisco, and was arrested by police officers there about four hours after his 3:30 p.m. hearing ended in a Douglas courtroom, according to the Converse County Sheriff’s Office.
By dodging his hearing, Smallbone also forfeited the $250,000 cash someone had put up to bond him out of jail last month.
That comes out to $62,500 for each hour of freedom he had between the time Peasley issued a new fugitive warrant for Smallbone and the time he was arrested in San Francisco, said Sheriff Clint Becker.
“Yeah, that’s about it. That’s pretty expensive,” Becker told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday morning. “I don’t know who put up the bond for him, but that’s the kind of chance you take.”
The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office confirms through its online inmate roster that Smallbone remains in custody there, being held on the Wyoming fugitive felony warrant.
Becker said he never doubted Smallbone would be caught again after a Fort Collins, Colorado, magistrate let him out of jail there last week on his own recognizance instead of holding him for Wyoming authorities.
But he’s pleased that happened as quickly as it did.
“We’re pretty happy with that, of course,” Becker said. “We didn’t want a person with those types of charges to be out and about. I had faith we would catch him.”
Becker said he couldn’t talk about just how his investigators — Lt. Ben Peech and Cpl. Amber Peterson — learned Smallbone was on his way to San Francisco. However, he praised their continued work on his case.
“I’m extremely proud of Lieutenant Peech and Corporal Peterson for their relentless dedication and professional investigative work,” he said. “Their persistence, combined with the excellent partnership and support of our colleagues in San Francisco, made this arrest possible.”
Smallbone also is supposed to return for another hearing in the Colorado court on Thursday to follow up on his arrest last week.
‘Hopefully …’
Now that Smallbone has been caught fleeing Wyoming and the dozens of felony charges he faces here twice in less than a week, Becker said he hopes there isn’t a repeat of what happened in Colorado last week.
“That was my comment when I got called to let us know he was in custody,” the sheriff said. “Hopefully …”
Smallbone was arrested on a previous fugitive warrant in Fort Collins last Wednesday, and appeared the next day in Magistrate Heather Siegel’s courtroom, where she gave him a personal recognizance bond.
Officials in Wyoming and Colorado who worked to track Smallbone down have expressed frustration with that situation.
Kylie Masserman, a spokesperson with the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office in Colorado, told Cowboy State Daily via an emailed statement on Monday that the court had the proper documentation to hold Smallbone.
“The District Attorney’s Office strongly believes that this bond setting is dangerous and has put the communities in both Colorado and Wyoming at risk,” she said. “Giving a free pass to dangerous out-of-state offenders fleeing to Colorado sets a terrible precedent and risks further harm to the victims in the Wyoming case.”
Now that he’s been caught again, Becker said he’s confident Smallbone will be returned to Wyoming to face his charges.
And there will be more of those to face, Converse County Deputy Attorney Nate Shumway said during Tuesday’s hearing.
He told the judge that his office has filed amended charges against Smallbone that include the 72 he already had been hit with, plus more that he’s since picked up.
Those amended charges weren’t immediately available through the district court following the hearing.
The Charges
The list of charges against Smallbone is long, including:
• 1 count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
• 36 counts of possessing child pornography.
• 16 counts of using a video camera to record intimate areas of another person without consent.
• 18 counts of knowingly manufacturing, generating, or creating child pornography.
• 1 count of possessing more than 3 ounces of marijuana (1.3 pounds).
He landed on the radar of the Converse County Sheriff’s Office after the mother of an underage girl reported concerning interactions her daughter had with Smallbone on May 9.
The girl was in a vehicle with Smallbone and others when he allegedly typed “if you suck me, I’ll lick you” on his phone and showed it to the girl, according to an affidavit of probable cause written by Peech.
“He also mouthed the words, ‘I want to see you naked,’” the affidavit says.
Smallbone later denied mouthing anything or showing the girl any messages.
That, along with other alleged disturbing interactions with the girl at Smallbone’s home that evening, started an investigation that revealed a trove of photos, videos and other child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his electronic devices, the affidavit says.
The investigation also showed Smallbone had been convicted in 2002 of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust in Douglas County, Colorado.
He also had registered as a sex offender in Wyoming in 2014, but it was “later determined not to be required to register in Wyoming due to him being a juvenile at the time of his adjudication in Colorado,” according to the affidavit.
That was in reference to a 2001 case when Smallbone was 12 and was accused of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl, the affidavit says.
While in treatment for that incident, he disclosed he also had sexual contact with at least seven other children, and five were younger than him at the time of the sexual contact.
What Investigators Found
The case against Smallbone exploded when forensic examinations were performed on his cellphone and electronic devices, according to the affidavit.
On them, they found dozens of images and videos depicting prepubescent girls and boys performing a wide range of sex acts, the affidavit says. Many of the videos appear to have been created by Smallbone in rooms and spaces that are identifiable to connect them to alleged potential victims.
There also were videos of Smallbone having sex with an adult female, the affidavit says, adding that the woman told investigators she had no knowledge she was on camera.
The most disturbing allegations stem from a series of at least seven videos that the affidavit reports allegedly show a young girl having her pants pulled down and being subjected to having sex with a dog.
Along with the CSAM, investigators say they found “records indicating (his phone) had been used to connect to the Tor Browser, which is commonly used by subjects accessing CSAM to communicate within the Dark Web anonymously,” the affidavit says.
If convicted with maximum concurrent sentences, Smallbone could face up to 791 years in prison and fines of up to $710,000.
The most serious is the sexual abuse of a minor charge, which calls for a sentence of between 25 and 50 years.
Because of Smallbone’s apparent penchant for running from the charges, Sheriff Becker said his office was “very motivated” to catch him again.
“We’re concerned for the public,” he said. “Any of those types of investigations, the amount of time and work that goes into them is astounding.
“And we really care about the kids in any of these types of crimes.”
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
