OAKLAND — A Bay Area man who allegedly went by the name “Sir Sicko” online was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in federal prison, months after he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography.
Ryan Kannett, 39, of Fairfax, was arrested in 2020 following an investigation in which he allegedly discussed wanting to rape and murder a child, then sell a video of the crime. He also asked an undercover agent to help him “brutally rape, torture, mutilate and snuff my ex,” and added that it was a “real and legitimate offer,” not mere fantasy, according to federal prosecutors.
The 15-year prison term, handed down by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam, is the minimum allowable under federal law.
In a sentencing memo, Kannett’s attorney pointed out that his client suffered from epilepsy and mental illness throughout his life, and went to an increasingly dark and bitter place in his mind. Kannett has a prior conviction for offering an undercover officer posing as a parent cocaine in exchange for being allowed to molest their child, court records show.
“Mr. Kannett accepts full responsibility for his mistakes, explaining to the probation officer that he is ‘ashamed for my conduct’ and knows he has ‘to live with impact on my family and the victims of the material I viewed,’ ” the defense attorney, Hanni Fakhoury, wrote in a sentencing memo. “He recognizes that while he ‘was heavily addicted to meth at the time,’ ultimately ‘there is no one else to blame’ but himself.”
The undercover agent who was chatting with Kannett happened to be based in Tennessee. They alerted Bay Area authorities, who served a search warrant at Kannett’s home in 2020. There, they discovered hundreds of graphic videos, including child pornography and bestiality, as well as “violent deaths, mutilated human bodies, and animal cruelty,” according to the criminal complaint.
In addition, authorities seized a quarter-ounce of methamphetamine and a large machete-style knife, as well as 18,000 files depicting child sexual abuse on one memory card alone, plus another 15,000 with pornographic videos and pictures depicting unidentified subjects whose age were difficult to determine, prosecutors said.
Authorities also found a 170-page guide on “how to practice child love.” It included instructions for how to pose as a minor online to lure children, including by feigning interest in horses or Justin Bieber and by downloading images of a child and posing as that person, according to prosecutors.
