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A welcome sign at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.

Former Army Staff Sgt. Cameron James Taylor, 49, of Seattle was sentenced to 87 months in jail for sexually abusing a child at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. (Abner Guzman/U.S. Air Force)

TACOMA, Wash. — A former soldier who served at Joint Base Lewis-McChord was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison for abusive sexual contact with a child who he had locked in a closet in 2012 at the Army-Air Force base in Washington.

Former Staff Sgt. Cameron James Taylor, 49, of Seattle was sentenced to 87 months in jail by Chief U.S. District Judge David Estudillo on Feb. 4. Estudillo also required Taylor be supervised for 10 years when he is released and register as a sex offender.

Taylor pleaded guilty to the charge in May 2024 and had been held in pre-trial confinement for the past nine months, according to court records.

“Taylor’s crimes reveal a man who lacks empathy and who prioritized his own pleasure over others’ pain,” the prosecutors wrote in a sentencing request to the judge. “Taylor is also no stranger to the justice system. This is his third criminal sex offense. The government hopes that a 96-month sentence, coupled with lifetime supervised release, will prevent Taylor from offending again.”

Estudillo ordered the 96-month sentence, minus the nine months that Taylor was held since pleading guilty.

The case arose from investigations into earlier assaults by Taylor by the Army Criminal Investigation Division, the King County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI.

Taylor was dismissed from the Army in 2016 with an other-than-honorable discharge after he was investigated for sexual assault of an unconscious female in Germany and for assaulting soldiers sent to arrest him, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle. He was allowed to resign from the Army in lieu of a court-martial, according to federal prosecutors.

Taylor returned to the Seattle area after leaving the Army, where he was convicted in 2019 for sexually assaulting a five-year-old child who lived near his home. He received 18 months in prison, according to records from King County Superior Court.

While investigating the King County case, investigators interviewed other children who had been in contact with Taylor. A child disclosed to a relative that in 2012, while stationed on Lewis-McChord, Taylor locked the then 5- or 6-year-old in a closet and sexually assaulted the child. Taylor had coached the child about hiding the sexual abuse, prosecutors said.

Estudillo praised the unnamed victim, now a teenager, who testified against Taylor, for showing the “courage to move on.”

U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said in a statement that investigating child sexual assaults at military bases in the region was a major area of focus for her office.

“This horrific conduct cannot go unpunished,” Gorman said. “Our work to protect children on our military bases is a priority in the Western District of Washington.”

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Gary Warner covers the Pacific Northwest for Stars and Stripes. He’s reported from East Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and across the U.S. He has a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

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