United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 19-1476 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

ZACHARY BENOIT, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 

[Hon. Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Howard, Chief Judge, 

Lynch and Thompson, Circuit Judges. 

Dorothy E. Graham, Assistant Federal Public Defender, on 

brief for appellant. 

 Seth R. Aframe, Assistant United States Attorney, and Scott 

W. Murray, United States Attorney, on brief for appellee. 

September 1, 2020 
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. The defendant, Zachary Benoit, 

pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography and 

one count of possessing child pornography. Benoit challenges the 

substantive reasonableness of his prison sentence and argues the 

district court abused its discretion when it imposed two special 

conditions of supervised release. After careful consideration, we 

affirm. 

BACKGROUND

A. The Crimes

Because Benoit pleaded guilty, we draw the facts of the 

case from the transcript of the sentencing hearing and undisputed 

portions of the Presentence Report ("PSR"). See United States v. 

Bermúdez–Meléndez, 827 F.3d 160, 162 (1st Cir. 2016). 

In the summer and fall of 2017, New Hampshire law 

enforcement was investigating the online sharing of child sexual 

abuse images. The investigation identified Benoit's IP address as 

one of the computers downloading and sharing hundreds of images 

and videos of children being sexually and physically abused. After 

executing a search warrant at Benoit's home, police uncovered 

multiple computers and hardware for digital storage. Officers 

confiscated and examined those devices and ultimately discovered 

299 pictures and 418 videos depicting the sexual and physical abuse 

of children. 
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Benoit agreed to be interviewed by a detective and 

disclosed several things that prove relevant to our analysis. 

Benoit explained that he used multiple file sharing platforms to 

acquire child pornography. He admitted knowing that one of the 

platforms automatically permitted other users to access files from 

his library of child pornography and that he used another 

application to trade child pornography files with another user. 

He sent one user about 50 child pornography files in exchange for 

100 similar files.

Benoit was not particularly discriminatory, disclosing 

to the detective that he liked all types of child pornography, 

though he preferred images of young girls. He built his library 

of pornography based on the searches of "other pedophiles," 

deleting files he downloaded if the children in them were "too 

young," which he explained was a child under five or six years 

old. He directed the detective to a file folder that had five 

videos depicting extensive sexual abuse and physical torture of a 

child under two years old. He described this folder as 

"disgusting" but held onto it. His interests in pornography, he 

declared, had become extreme and offensive since he first started 

downloading these images. 

When asked about physical contact with children, Benoit 

denied ever abusing his own son or any child. He further denied 
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speaking to a child or to anyone representing themselves to be a 

child online. 

In 2018, a grand jury indicted Benoit for Transportation 

of Child Pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1), and 

Possession of Child Pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2252(a)(4)(B). 

B. Dr. Guidry's Assessment 

On September 18, 2018, at the request of his attorney, 

Benoit met with a psychologist, Dr. Laurie L. Guidry (an expert 

hired by the defendant), for a psychosexual risk assessment. 

Benoit reported that he started masturbating to images of child 

sexual abuse when he was twenty-three years old (he was twentyseven when he was arrested in this case). Benoit explained he 

learned he could download pornographic videos and started to view 

pornography that depicted pre-teens and then prepubescent females. 

While he did not prefer a particular age group, he did not like 

toddlers and babies, so, if he was searching for pornography, he 

would search for content depicting children aged nine years and 

older. Though he sometimes downloaded pornography that included 

the torture of children, Benoit said that he was not interested in 

material that indicated force. He also acknowledged that he 

understood children could not consent to sexual activity, and he 

again denied that he ever pursued or engaged in sexual contact 

with a child. At age eight, he divulged, he and his four-year-
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old step-sister engaged in sexual misconduct.1 When his parents 

discovered this behavior, they stopped it and got Benoit into 

counseling. 

Dr. Guidry diagnosed Benoit with patterns of social 

anxiety hindering his ability to have comfortable interpersonal 

relationships and Dysthymic Disorder because he presented with 

symptoms of a generally depressed mood. Dr. Guidry determined 

that when comparing Benoit to other child pornography offenders, 

he "present[ed] a relatively low risk for recidivating with a 

contact sexual offense." This was based, in part, on what Dr. 

Guidry described as Benoit's "social phobia and reluctance to 

establish interpersonal connections" making it unlikely he would 

act on a sexual interest in children. Dr. Guidry further opined 

that Benoit's risk of committing another online sexual offense was 

"elevated if untreated but manageable if his psychological 

vulnerabilities are adequately addressed in treatment." 

C. The Guilty Plea and Sentencing 

On November 7, 2018, Benoit pleaded guilty without a 

plea agreement. Six month later, the District Court held Benoit's 

sentencing hearing. The District Court calculated Benoit's total 

offense level to be 35 and his criminal history category to be I, 

1 The PSR noted this and that Benoit reported to probation 

that he was sexually abused by an eight- or nine-year-old neighbor 

when he was approximately five years old. 
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yielding a sentencing guideline range of 168 to 210 months.2 Benoit 

did not object to this calculation. Citing the number of files in 

Benoit's possession, the amount of violence in some of the images, 

and Benoit's practice of sharing the images with others, including 

trading files for more child pornography, the government 

recommended a 168-month sentence. Defense counsel requested a 60-

month sentence, arguing that, per Dr. Guidry's conclusion (whose 

report was filed under seal with Benoit's sentencing memo), Benoit 

presented a low risk of committing a contact sexual offense upon 

release, Benoit was cooperative with investigators, and he 

complied with all supervision conditions while he was released 

after his arrest. The defendant was meted out a 156-month prison 

term. 

2 The court relied on the PSR to reach this conclusion. The 

PSR calculated Benoit's base offense level to be a 22 and 

recommended a two-level increase "because the material involved 

prepubescent minors who had not attained the age of 12," a fivelevel increase "because the offense involved the distribution for 

the receipt, or expectation of receipt, of a thing of value, but 

not for pecuniary gain," a four-level increase "because the offense 

involved material that portrayed sadistic conduct," a five-level 

increase "because the offense involved more than 600 images," and 

a total of a three-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility. 

The PSR also recommended a two-level increase "because the offense 

involved the use of a computer," but the defendant objected to 

this increase, arguing that this enhancement would apply in almost 

every child pornography case and would thus defeat the purpose of 

enhancements (which are supposed to increase a sentence where the 

conduct is worse than the typical conduct of such an offense). 

The district court agreed with the defendant and found that the 

enhancement for using a computer should not apply. In total, those 

calculations resulted in the total offense level of 35. 
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Backing up for a moment, probation also recommended that 

Benoit's conditions of supervised release include restrictions on 

his contact with children. Specifically, the PSR included a 

recommended condition, Condition #1, that Benoit be prohibited 

from direct contact with any child under the age of 18, including 

his own son, without the permission of his probation officer. 

Condition #1 defined direct contact as "written communication, inperson communication, or physical contact," but not "incidental 

contact during ordinary daily activities in public places." The 

PSR also included a recommended condition, Condition #6, that 

Benoit not go "any place where [he] know[s] children under the age 

of 18 are likely to be, including parks, schools, playgrounds, and 

childcare facilities." 

"Unreasonable" is how Benoit framed his objection to 

these conditions. Both, he argued, would restrict his contact 

with his son and any future children he may have, thus 

"interfer[ing] with his ability and right to raise his own 

children." 

Disagreeing, the district court found the supervised 

release conditions to be "appropriate because . . . they are 

reasonably related to the Section 3553(a) factors; they do not 

involve any greater deprivation of liberty than is necessary; and 

[they are] consistent with the policy statements issued by the 

Sentencing Commission under the facts of this case." The court 
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amended Condition #6 to prohibit Benoit from going to places where 

he knows children are likely to be only without permission from 

his probation officer. With that change to Condition #6, the 

district court imposed Conditions #1 and #6 (as well as other 

conditions not relevant here). 

OUR TAKE 

 On appeal, Benoit asks us to review both the length of 

his prison sentence and the special conditions restricting his 

contact with children, protestations he made below. We begin our 

analysis with Benoit's term of incarceration by considering 

whether the sentencing judge so poorly balanced the relevant 

considerations that the resulting sentence was unreasonable. We 

then turn to Benoit's argument about his contact with children, 

specifically his three-year-old son, after his release from 

prison. 

A. Benoit's 156-Month Sentence

We review Benoit's sentence for an abuse of the 

sentencing judge's discretion. United States v. Perretta, 804 

F.3d 53, 56 (1st Cir. 2015). "The touchstone of abuse of 

discretion review in federal sentencing is reasonableness." 

United States v. Vargas–Dávila, 649 F.3d 129, 130 (1st Cir. 2011) 

(citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46 (2007)). A sentence 

is substantively unreasonable (and the sentencing judge has 

therefore abused his discretion) "only if it falls beyond the 
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expansive 'universe of reasonable sentencing outcomes.'" United 

States v. Rodríguez-Torres, 939 F.3d 16, 43 (1st Cir. 2019) 

(quoting Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d at 167). Ever mindful that 

"[r]easonableness is itself an inherently fluid concept," 

Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d at 167, we affirm where the sentencing 

judge "gave a plausible explanation and reached a defensible 

result," United States v. Chisholm, 940 F.3d 119, 132 (1st Cir. 

2019) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 1224 (2020). 

Put another way, we do not reverse simply because we would have 

sentenced the defendant differently. United States v. Martin, 520 

F.3d 87, 92 (1st Cir. 2008). 

Before imposing a sentence, the district court must 

calculate the sentencing guideline range, which serves as a 

"'starting point and the initial benchmark,' but which may not be 

presumed reasonable." United States v. Stone, 575 F.3d 83, 94 

(1st Cir. 2009) (quoting Gall, 552 U.S. at 49). The district court 

considers the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and imposes "a 

sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary" to achieve 

the sentencing statute's goals of appropriately punishing the 

defendant's conduct, deterring future unlawful conduct, protecting 

the public from the defendant, and providing the defendant with 

the care he needs. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The court then evaluates 

the defendant's conduct and history through the prism of the 

sentencing guidelines range and sentencing factors to select a 
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sentence from the "universe of reasonable sentencing outcomes," 

Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d at 167. "A sentencing court is under 

a mandate to consider [that] myriad of relevant factors, but the 

weighting of those factors is largely within the court's informed 

discretion." United States v. Hassan-Saleh-Mohamad, 930 F.3d 1, 

9 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d 

588, 593 (1st Cir. 2011)). 

Benoit's argument that his sentence is substantively 

unreasonable breaks down to two, connected points. Benoit argues 

that the sentencing guidelines are especially harsh for child 

pornography offenses and the sentencing court gave the guidelines 

"undue weight." Relatedly, according to Benoit, while the court 

overvalued the guidelines, it undervalued his mitigating evidence, 

including that he had no prior criminal history, that he cooperated 

with law enforcement, and the findings in Dr. Guidry's report. 

Our review of the sentencing transcript reveals that 

Benoit's argument lacks any factual support in the record. 

Beginning with his argument about the guidelines, we again 

recognize that the sentencing guidelines punishing child 

pornography crimes "are very stern," Clogston, 662 F.3d at 593 

and, in some circumstances, are "harsher than necessary," Stone, 

575 F.3d at 97. Even where the guidelines suggest a long prison 

term, a sentence is not substantively unreasonable where the 

sentencing court considers the guidelines along with the § 3553(a) 
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factors and the details of a defendant's case. See Hassan-SalehMohamad, 930 F.3d at 9. Here, the sentencing court explicitly 

addressed these concerns, noting that "many courts" have in fact 

found the child pornography guidelines enhancements to be 

"problematic." In apparent agreement with this observation, the 

court applied what it determined was a "reasonable variance" and 

sentenced Benoit to a sentence one year shorter than the shortest 

sentence within the guidelines.

We next search the record for support that the court, as 

Benoit claims, improperly disregarded mitigating evidence. We are 

left wanting. The district court announced its sentencing 

determination expressly mentioning that Benoit 

 had not committed any contact offenses 

 was sexually abused as a child 

 had no prior criminal record 

 had a good work history 

 had cooperated with law enforcement during the 

investigation 

 had complied with all release conditions, and 

 was found by Dr. Guidry to be a low risk of 

committing a contact sexual offense and an elevated 

risk of recommitting an online sexual offense only 
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if his psychological vulnerabilities were left 

untreated. 

The court considered this mitigating evidence and 

weighed it against other relevant factors, such as the seriousness 

of Benoit's offenses, the impact of child pornography on victims, 

Benoit's images depicting "very young children and extremely 

sadistic conduct," and Benoit's five-year "fixat[ion] on child 

pornography." 

Perhaps this is why Benoit does not quite argue that the 

sentencing judge outright failed to consider mitigating factors 

and simply argues, rather, that the sentencing judge reached the 

wrong result. The court carefully assessed the relevant facts 

and, in our view, the resulting sentence is one which the court 

deemed "sufficient, but not more than necessary." "Though there 

can be no question that the result is stern, it is defensible." 

Stone, 575 F.3d at 96. We cannot say that this sentence is outside 

the "universe of reasonable sentenc[es]," Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 

F.3d at 167, and we therefore see no abuse of discretion. 

B. Supervised Release Conditions 

We now turn to Benoit's appeal of Conditions #1 and #6 

of supervised release. We remind the reader that Condition #1 

prohibits Benoit from interacting with children, including his 

own, absent probation permission and Condition #6 restricts Benoit 
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from going places where he knows children will be, again, without 

probation approval. 

When imposing conditions of supervised release, a 

sentencing court may order "any . . . condition it considers to be 

appropriate" if, based on the circumstances of the offense and the 

defendant's history, that condition "involves no greater 

deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary" to achieve 

the goals of sentencing, such as protecting the public. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(d). We review the imposition of supervised release 

conditions for an abuse of that broad discretion. United States 

v. Hood, 920 F.3d 87, 92 (1st Cir. 2019). "Under that standard, 

we review purely legal questions de novo, factual issues for clear 

error, and 'judgment calls' through a 'classically deferential' 

lens." Id. (quoting Riva v. Ficco, 615 F.3d 35, 40 (1st Cir. 

2010)). "[T]he 'hallmark' that separates the permissible from the 

impermissible is whether, given the facts, a certain restriction 

was 'clearly unnecessary.'" United States v. Santiago, 769 F.3d 

1, 9 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting United States v. Brown, 235 F.3d 2, 

7 (1st Cir. 2000)). 

Benoit focuses on the impact of the Conditions on his 

ability to parent his son, who, at the time of his sentencing was, 

as earlier noted, three years of age. According to the PSR, as a 

result of his arrest, Benoit has had no contact with his son or 

with his son's mother, and his son's mother was seeking full 
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custody. Benoit argues that because he has only committed noncontact offenses and there is no evidence that he has physically 

harmed his son or any child or that he is likely to, there is an 

insufficient relationship between his criminal conduct and the 

conditions limiting his contact with his son. 

In support of his argument, Benoit leans heavily on 

United States v. Del Valle-Cruz, where we vacated similar 

conditions and remanded for resentencing. 785 F.3d 48, 62-64 (1st 

Cir. 2015). This comparison is unpersuasive. In Del Valle-Cruz, 

the defendant pleaded guilty to a Sex Offender Registry and 

Notification Act ("SORNA") violation for failing to register as a 

sex offender, which was required because of a sex offense involving 

a minor he committed 17 years earlier. Id. at 52-54. The defendant 

had no relevant criminal record in the years since his underlying 

conviction and, at the time of sentencing, was living with and 

raising his minor children. Id. Offering no reasons whatsoever 

for his decision, the judge imposed conditions similar to those 

Benoit complains of now. Id. at 53-54. We noted there that 

depriving a parent of their ability to raise their child is a 

serious deprivation that necessitates an explanation from the 

sentencing judge, especially if one is not apparent from the 

record. Id. We vacated those conditions and remanded for 

resentencing because the judge offered no such explanation and 

there was no discernable relationship between that defendant's 
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crime (failing to register) and preventing him from continuing to 

raise his children (who he had been parenting without incident). 

Id. at 58-62. We also noted that seventeen years had passed since 

any allegations of the defendant engaging in sexual conduct 

involving children, weakening any argument that the conditions 

achieved any goal of supervised release. Id. at 63-64. 

In this arena, "our inquiry relies on case-by-case 

scrutiny of individual circumstances," United States v. CabreraRivera, 893 F.3d 14, 29 (1st Cir. 2018), and the specifics of 

Benoit's case are simply unlike Del Valle-Cruz. When Benoit was 

sentenced, he had, a few months earlier, pleaded guilty to 

possession and distribution of graphic child pornography, which, 

considering all of the relevant facts, demonstrates a more active 

risk to children than a SORNA registration violation where the 

defendant had no more contemporary record of relevant misconduct. 

Compare Del Valle-Cruz, 785 F.3d at 52-54 with United States v. 

Mercado, 777 F.3d 532, 539 (1st Cir. 2015) (holding that 

restricting SORNA defendant's association with his minor children 

was reasonable where recent criminal history indicated risk of reoffending). Though Dr. Guidry (Benoit's expert) opined that 

Benoit's risk of recidivism would be low with proper treatment, 

the district court pointed out that at the time of sentencing, 

Benoit had undergone no such treatment. Further, the district 

court noted that the defendant had sexually abused his sister when 
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she was four years of age. Therefore, on sentencing day, the 

district court reasonably concluded that Benoit was a risk to his 

young son, particularly where Benoit admitted that he viewed 

pornography depicting children of many ages and his file collection 

reflected both an interest in very young children and in violence 

directed at children. Compare United States v. Pabon, 819 F.3d 

26, 29, 33-34 (1st Cir. 2016) (affirming the imposition of 

conditions restricting the defendant's ability to interact with 

children, including his minor daughter, because the relationship 

between the conditions and the defendant's conduct was clear where 

the defendant had sexually abused a teenage girl and the district 

court "found that the conditions were necessary in order to keep 

the public safe, and especially to protect minors from [the 

defendant]'s violent inclinations") with Cabrera-Rivera, 893 F.3d 

at 33-34 (vacating conditions restricting child pornography 

defendant from raising his minor children where the conditions 

were unexplained by the court, the underlying criminal conduct did 

not involve violence, and there was "no basis in the record for 

concluding that [defendant] 'is a danger to [his] children'" 

(quoting United States v. Fey, 834 F.3d 1, 5 (2016))). 

Overall, we do not think that it is "clearly 

unnecessary," Brown, 235 F.3d at 7, to restrict Benoit's 

interactions with children, including his own son with whom he 

currently has no contact, absent a probation officer's approval 
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where the record includes Benoit's own admissions that he regularly 

masturbated to child pornography and had assembled a collection of 

hundreds of child pornography files, including images where very 

young children were tortured. See Pabon, 819 F.3d at 31 (approving 

of conditions restricting defendant's interactions with minors 

where the "defendant's conduct . . . indicates an enhanced risk to 

minors"). Further, upon release or in the years that follow, 

Benoit can petition the court to amend these conditions. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(e)(2). In the meantime, "[t]here is no basis for believing 

that the probation officer will unreasonably withhold permission." 

Pabon, 819 F.3d at 33 (quoting Mercado, 777 F.3d at 539) 

(alteration in original). 

CONCLUSION 

Accordingly, we affirm Benoit's sentence and the 

conditions of supervised release.