Former New Mexico State Police officer sentenced for having child sexual abuse material

A former New Mexico State Police sergeant received an 85-month prison sentence for possessing images of children being sexually abused.

Sammy Clouthier, 45, of Carlsbad was convicted of the transportation and possession of child pornography. Clouthier’s attorney stopped representing him on Thursday, according to online court records.

In addition to his prison sentence, Clouthier was ordered to pay over $52,000 in restitution to the victims, according to a U.S. Department of Justice of New Mexico news release. After his prison term, he will be subject to five years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender.

The FBI arrested Clouthier at his home in Carlsbad on July 20, 2024. He had been with the State Police for 18 years at the time, the Journal previously reported.

Between Dec. 30, 2023, and March 25, 2024, Clouthier “knowingly possessed” child sexual abuse material “involving a prepubescent minor,” DOJ said. He told the feds he looked at images of young girls, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court of New Mexico.

On April 18, 2023, the FBI learned of a cyber tip the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received regarding images showing men raping girls that were uploaded to Clouthier’s phone, according to the complaint. A search of the phone showed there were over 30 images depicting men raping girls, including one involving a girl “2-4 years old,” the agent said.

The feds identified Clouthier — also a New Mexico Activities Association high school basketball official at the time — through internet and law enforcement database searches, the complaint states.

Clouthier told the FBI in July 2023 that “he had downloaded and viewed illegal images of young girls in the past” and had been “struggling through cycles of downloading and deleting images of young girls for a long time,” according to the complaint.

The case was investigated by the FBI Albuquerque Division Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force and New Mexico State Police.