A former Bucks County corrections officer and longtime law enforcement official is on the wrong side of the law and will serve time behind bars.
Christos Sinchuk Rallis, 52, received a sentence of eight years and four months from U.S. District Judge Joel H. Slomsky last Friday in Philadelphia.
After his prison term, Rallis will face 10 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $38,000 in restitution to his victims, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania David Metcalf.
Rallis, who previously served as an officer with the San Francisco Police Department from 2007 to 2023, moved to Bucks County in recent years. He was employed by the county’s corrections department at the time of his arrest last year.
According to federal prosecutors, Rallis admitted to possessing nearly 1,000 prohibited images and videos on his devices and sharing multiple files online.
In a statement, Metcalf noted that Rallis committed these offenses while working as a correctional officer.
Court filings revealed that Rallis used the messaging app Kik to communicate with others interested in the material.
Forensic analysis of his devices uncovered 609 videos and 249 images, some of which depicted the abuse of infants, authorities said.
Investigators found that on March 6, 2024, Rallis shared four child sexual abuse files within a two-hour window immediately after leaving a correctional officer training session in Bucks County, according to court papers.
Victims of the child sexual abuse videos and images submitted impact statements detailing the ongoing issues caused by the distribution of the media, according to federal court records obtained by NewHopeFreePress.com.
“Every time someone else sees pictures or videos of me it feels like they are the ones who hurt me to begin with,” one victim wrote. “Anyone who looks is keeping my pain going for the rest of my life.”
Another victim described the powerlessness of knowing the images remain on the internet.
“The day I found out that my pictures and my videos were out there for the world to see… I sobbed my eyes out to the point I could barely see,” the statement from the victim read.
Defense attorneys John Fioravanti and Paul Lang sought a five-year sentence, arguing in a memo that Rallis had lived a “law-abiding life for many years” prior to his arrest.
The defense attorneys characterized their client as “undoubtedly troubled.” They noted in a sentencing memo he suffered from long-undiagnosed depression and anxiety, which were factors in withdrawing from society and taking part in the crimes.
Prosecutors requested a 14-year sentence before the plea and told the judge of the severity of the crimes and Rallis’s position of trust in his law enforcement career.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General as part of Project Safe Childhood, a national initiative focused on combating child sexual exploitation.
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