Former Lynden cop sentenced to 10 days in jail, about 9 months of house arrest for child porn

LYNDEN, Wash. -- A former longtime Lynden police officer who pleaded guilty to having pornography of a teenage girl on his work phone was sentenced Tuesday to 10 days in jail and about nine months of house arrest.

According to the Bellingham Herald, the sentence was actually harsher than a plea deal under which Donald Merle Glunt, 59, was to serve no jail time and only 45 days on home detention. Superior Court Judge Ira Uhrig overruled that plea deal.

Prosecutors had said the plea deal would save taxpayers from paying for medical costs associated with Glunt's stomach cancer. But some in the community signed a petition calling for a harsher punishment.

Glunt was on the Lynden police force from 1979 until 2014.

He had pleaded guilty to having nude photos on his work phone of a 16-year-old girl he had met online.

The Herald said that, according to court records, other pictures were found at his home, including one picture showing a child, aged 2 to 5, being raped. Others showed scantily clad underage girls engaged in sex acts.

Glunt pleaded guilty to a single count of possessing sexual depictions of minors. The standard range for the crime is three to nine months in jail,the Herald reported.

According to the Herald, the judge ordered Glunt to serve 10 days of his sentence behind bars, unless the jail finds him medically unfit. The remainder of a nine-month sentence will be served under house arrest.

He will have to register as a sex offender upon his release.

The Herald said Glunt gave a brief apologetic statement to the judge Tuesday: “I’m disgusted with myself and will always live with that shame.”

Because he resigned from his job, the Herald said, Glunt continues to receive a pension of more than $3,000 a month from the city of Lynden.