Retired CHP officer, accused of ‘grooming’ minors, is jailed for allegedly violating release terms in child porn case

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge here has jailed a retired California Highway Patrol officer after FBI agents secretly trailed him to two stores and collected evidence he violated the pretrial release terms in his child pornography case by possessing a cellphone, court records show.

Timothy Allen Horwath, 52, is in the Sacramento County Jail on a no-bail hold after U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Barnes issued a detention order Feb. 28, records show. Horwath was charged in 2019 with possessing more than 350 videos of child pornography, as well as a whopping 40,000 pictures.

During the investigation, authorities found evidence Horwath, a Redding resident, was using a high school-age picture of a boy who was friends with one of his children to pretend to be a minor online. Authorities wrote in court papers Horwath “used mobile phone messaging apps to engage in apparent active grooming of potentially minor females in the Philippines and Brazil to persuade them to produce nude images,” and that the child pornography files were found after his electronic devices were searched.

The case has dragged on for years with Horwath out of custody, on the condition that he not access the internet nor possess any device capable of internet access. But last Dec. 13, a CHP investigator received a tip that Horwath had set up a Snapchat account and owned a cellphone.

On two occasions last January, the FBI and CHP shadowed Horwath as he traveled to a Walmart in Rancho Cordova and appeared to be using a cellphone, according to court records. A week later, investigators followed him to a Target in Folsom, eavesdropped on him talking an employee about purchasing a SIM card and other cellphone parts, and about plans to travel to the Bay Area, authorities allege.

Horwath’s attorney proposed ordering him on house arrest, or requiring him to live with a relative in Santa Rosa, in lieu of jailing Horwath. Barnes sided with prosecutors and ordered Horwath jailed pending the outcome of the case, court records show.