On December 22nd, a former Anne Arundel County police lieutenant was sentenced to prison after he was charged with exchanging sexually explicit photos and text messages with a sixteen-year-old girl. Forty-seven-year-old James Cifala of Edgewater was convicted on a single count of receiving child pornography.

The contact between Cifala and the then sixteen-year-old was allowable under state law, but prosecutable under federal law. Cifala met the girl in 2007 when she was fourteen-years-old, but told her that they would have to wait until she turned sixteen before having physical sexual relations. During the ensuing two years, Cifala and the victim used pre-paid cell phones and social networking sites to exchange messages, including over 1,300 messages exchanged between mid-August and early September of 2009. According to a plea arrangement in the case, Cifala and the victim had sex "several times" in a vacant house and in Cifala's truck.

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