In one of those stories that makes you wish the earth had an “off” switch, a Lubbock federal judge sentenced 30-year-old Dava Danielle Pound to 30 years in prison for producing videos of her sexually abusing two children. Judge James Hendrix didn’t mince words, calling her crimes “so egregious” that he gave her the maximum punishment allowed by law. Her boyfriend, who possessed the videos, got 20 years.
The whole case started when Verizon flagged files being uploaded to the cloud—because yes, apparently people still think uploading crimes to Google Drive is a good idea. Investigators traced the files back to Pound and her boyfriend, who were living in Lubbock at the time, and found two horrific videos showing Pound abusing children.
Her defense tried to frame it as a “perfect storm” of alcoholism and unhealed childhood trauma, but the judge wasn’t having it. “I’ve known mean drunks, I’ve known sad drunks,” he said. “But I’ve never met pedophile drunks.” A rare moment of clarity from the bench in a city where the justice system usually folds faster than a Whataburger napkin.
Pound told the court she hopes to train dogs in prison. Let’s just hope she never gets near anything more innocent than a pair of nail clippers again.
