PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Steven Rockett was convicted this week in Oregon’s first foreign sexual tourism case.
Rockett, 47, who resides in Forest Grove, will remain in custody until he is formally sentenced on Aug. 30, 2016. He is already facing a 52 prison sentence in Washington County Circuit Court for unrelated sex crimes cases.
According to a memorandum submitted to the court by federal prosecutors, in March 2013, Rockett’s ex-wife told Forest Grove police that she suspected Rockett may have sexually abused their two sons. She also told investigators that Rockett “engaged in suspicious activities with young boys while the two of them were in the Philippines.”
When the coupled visited the Philippines, Rockett would “get kids” and go to a hotel with them, according to federal prosecutors. On one occasion, Rockett was found “playing strip poker with several boys” from his ex-wife’s local neighborhood.
Investigators believe Rockett took several naked photos of Filipino boys and stored those images on his computer.
Investigators were able to obtaine messages from Facebook that showed Rockett coached a female on how to take naked photos of children, according to federal prosecutors. In one of the messages, the child reported to the person taking the pictures for Rockett that the child didn’t like to be naked because she had heard rumors about Rockett taking pictures of children when naked and then selling them.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation into Rockett and during a search warrant found two alarm clocks that had digital cameras hidden inside them, according to federal prosecutors.
Investigators also found a black wire running from the wall into a crawl space. When they followed the wire, they found it connected to a pine-hole-camera mounted inside a wall in a guest bathroom.
During a forensic search of electronic data seized during the investigation, detectives found 86 images of prepubescent children engaged in lewd and lascivious exhibition of their genitals, according to court documents. Investigators also learned that child pornography had been downloaded by someone using the user ID of “stevens.”
Data that had been encrypted on Rockett’s computer remained inaccessible even after it was sent to the FBI computer laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
During the FBI’s investigation, Special Agent Denise Biehn traveled to the Philippines where she and other agents learned that Rockett would “lavish them with gifts, and offer his hotel room to them to watch television, play games, and take hot showers.” According to federal prosecutors, a hot shower is a “luxury that few enjoy in the third world shanty town that is Cebu City.”
The FBI learned that Rockett had engaged in sexual activities with boys while visiting the Philippines, according to court documents.
“Several witnesses spoke of (Rockett’s) reputation in Cebu City for having sexual interest in children, and how they believed (Rockett) would give money or technological devices to children for sexual favors (including touching and oral sex),” federal prosecutors wrote.
Rockett has been convicted in Washington County Circuit Court of attempted using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, first-degree sexual abuse, second-degree rape, second-degree sodomy, unlawful use of a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct. He has filed notices of appeal in each case.