Former Fair Bluff cop pleads to child porn charge
Donald Bryan Beauchaine
By DEUCE NIVEN
A former Fair Bluff Police Department officer arrested on secret peeping charges in 2014 has pleaded guilty to manufacturing child pornography, an announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern North Carolina said Wednesday.
Donald Bryan Beauchaine, 40, of Lake Waccamaw, entered the guilty plea before U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III in Raleigh on Monday. He faces up to 30 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.
Beauchaine was caught secretly videotaping the minor daughter of his girlfriend, in the bathroom on June 4, 2014. He later admitted videotaping the girl between April and June of 2014.
Investigators discovered 12,000 images of child pornography on his cell phone and laptop computer, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Beauchaine was reported missing soon after his hidden camera was discovered at his home, Lake Waccamaw Police Chief Scott Hyatt said at the time. Located later, in Leland, he was admitted to the VA Medical Center in Fayetteville, and arrested on warrants charging ten counts of secret peeping upon his release from the hospital.
State charges were dismissed last August, Columbus County Clerk of Court records show. The criminal investigation for the federal case was conducted by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the Lake Waccamaw Police Department.
A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp and law enforcement, Beauchaine was suspended from his job as a Fair Bluff Police Department officer after the Lake Waccamaw warrants were obtained, and fired days after his arrest.
