A Parent's Worst Nightmare

"You are a parent's worst nightmare. You are one nightmare that I'm going to put to rest today."


Judge Chet Tharpe said as he sentenced Steven Schurgard to 85 years in prison.


Steven's father had reportedly turned his son in for his illegal acts back in 2002 after Steven threatened to kill his father. Apparently he had an anger management problem. But he had more problems than that, much more.

When Temple Terrace police went to serve Schurgard, the man who test drove cars for work and lived with his mother answered the door with a gun tucked in the waist of his pants. He threatened police and told them he had child pornography on his computer. Police returned with a search warrant and seized Schurgard's computer and a cache of video and cassette tapes.

Though 617 child porn images were found on Steven's computer, including video tapes of a teenage boy engaged in sex acts in the home Steven shared with his mother....rather than face a trial he plead guilty to three counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child, one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a victim younger than 18 and five counts of possession of child pornography.

All that was left was to be sentenced by the judge. He could have received as little as 4 years.

Steven Schurgard, who once called himself "a full-fledged pedophile" on his Web site, told a judge Thursday that he was sorry for owning child pornography and filming a young man engaged in a sex act.

But when some of his videos Steven had made were played for the judge....Steven hummed along.

"No one else will ever do. I'm still in love with you."

Is it any wonder then that the judge threw the book at him? We should have more of this type of judicial responsibility, and not just at the arrogant, in-your-face attitude of those like Steven Schurgard.

Schurgard's open plea left the length of his sentence up to the judge. Tharpe watched a video of a 13-year-old boy whom Schurgard plied with video games, drugs and alcohol, then filmed performing sexual acts. He saw a sampling of the obscene images from the man's computer. He was also shown evidence that would not have been allowed at trial but could be used by the judge to determine character. One video, set to the music from Jaws, showed Schurgard peeking through his blinds at a boy playing outside. Another captured him giggling guiltily as he flipped through pictures of naked boys and showed off literature from the North American Man/Boy Love Association, of which he was a member.

The DA "He is the very epitome of what parents lay in bed at night worrying about."

The defense attorney: argued that the 13-year-old had been a willing participant

The judge: "The only regret I have is that I can only sentence you to 85 years"

Trucker: "I think he was just doing what all of us would do if these damn laws didn't force us to obey them. I know the law shouldn't be broken, but to give an honest, wonderful person like that life in prison, and knowing that he would never intentionally harm a child is just preposterous."

Albert Ross: "maybe steve just doesn't know the meaning of fear, but he still gets hero status in my book."

Let's look at what one of those videos were, shall we? Is this meant to instill fear in the hearts of parents? Is it meant to mock society? What the hell was he thinking when Steven Schurgard made this video and posted it on his website?? Norbert said it was meant to be humor. I, for one, am not laughing.