The U.S. Attorney’s Office recommends that a former Oak Harbor police officer spend eight years and one month in federal prison for possessing child pornography.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Hampton filed the government’s sentencing memorandum for Oak Harbor resident John Little in U.S. District Court Thursday.

Little, 55, a 27-year veteran of the force, was a patrol officer and formerly the school resource officer at Oak Harbor High School.

The memo also calls for 15 years of supervision following Little’s imprisonment.

Little is scheduled to be sentenced June 23.

Under a plea bargain, Little pleaded guilty in March to a single count of possession of child pornography. His crimes, however, went beyond simple possession of child porn, the memorandum states.

“Little’s choice to collect child pornography is bad enough,” the memorandum states. “But he went further, engaging in a pattern of sexual exploitation and abuse of teenage girls. Not content to live out his fantasies with adults, Little turned his gaze toward girls decades his junior and then engaged in a pattern of sexually explicit conversations and image exchanges, including requests that these girls provide him with newly created sexually explicit images.”

The memorandum says there is no excuse for his choice to prey on young girls to fulfill his “dark sexual desires.”

On the other hand, the document states that Little was cooperative with FBI agents, admitted to his crimes and took responsibility for his actions.

Little first came to the attention of the FBI when agents were investigating several men who were engaging in sexual chats and image exchanges with a 13-year-old girl in New Mexico. The FBI served a search warrant on Little’s home last summer and interviewed him.

Little admitted that he used the Kik Internet-messaging application to engage in sexually explicit chats and exchange pornographic images with at least five girls he knew were minors. He maintained that he never actually had any sexual contact with any minors, the memorandum states.

Agents found sexually explicit images of minors and sexually explicit chats with minors on his cell phone.

Not only did Little possess child porn, he was involved in the creation of child pornography, the memorandum states.

Little persuaded the girls to photograph or videotape themselves committing sex acts and then to send him the images or videos, the memorandum states.

The U.S. attorney that child-porn offenses are particularly horrific because they perpetrate a cycle of victimization and re-victimization that causes “immeasurable harm.”

“Offenders such as Little help drive the demand for and normalize the collection of material that can only be created through new victims and new abuse,” the document states.