Lancaster Man Gets 10 Years for Molesting 2-Year-Old Girl

A Lancaster man who photographed himself molesting a 2-year-old girl was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in state prison.

Thomas Cook, 33, who was arrested after authorities identified him through the photographs, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of conducting a lewd act on a child involving the 2-year-old and another young victim, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Rhodes said.

“What you have is a memorializing of the crime” on film, Rhodes said. “It’s akin to somebody videotaping themselves committing a bank robbery.”

The 2-year-old had been left in Cook’s care once while the girl’s mother went shopping, Rhodes said. While he was baby-sitting, Cook made the child engage in various sexual acts with him while he took pictures.

Using a fake name, Cook took the film to a local drugstore to be developed, Rhodes said. Workers processing the film at a lab notified authorities. State law requires workers at film processing labs to notify authorities any time they find film depicting children engaged in sexual conduct, said Detective Gary Lyon of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Cook was arrested April 10 when deputies recognized him from one of the photographs, which had been copied and distributed throughout the department.

“He had the receipt for the photographs under the assumed name on his person at the time he was arrested,” Rhodes said.

After his arrest, authorities said they learned that Cook had also molested a 9-year-old girl.

Initially 13 counts of child molestation were filed against Cook, but 11 were dismissed as part of a plea bargain.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Charles Horan sentenced Cook to the maximum sentence for the remaining counts.