Feb. 18—ROCHESTER — A former Olmsted County deputy who is already serving a 19.5-year prison sentence for sex-related crimes received an additional sentence Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, for the charges brought against him in district court.
Mathew Richard Adamson, 46, faced 11 counts of sex-related charges. He had filed a guilty plea to four gross misdemeanor counts of interference with privacy on Jan. 31. He appeared in Olmsted District Court on Tuesday virtually from the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, Minnesota.
“This is a failure of the justice system,” District Judge Joseph Bueltel said during Adamson’s virtual plea hearing.
The former deputy initially faced three criminal charges after law enforcement conducted a sting operation to find child predators. Adamson was charged again one month later after detectives located child sexual abuse images and screen captures from surveillance cameras of female detainees changing in the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center.
On Tuesday, in exchange for Adamson’s plea, the remaining counts in both cases were dismissed. Adamson was sentenced to 364 days in jail with 314 days of credit for time served.
The sentence will be served concurrently to the 19.5-year sentence imposed by federal court in January 2025 after Adamson pleaded guilty to one federal charge of producing and attempting to produce child pornography.
“I was a good man at one point, your honor,” Adamson said. “I’m going to take this time to fix myself, repair myself.”
The court first heard from the mother of two children whom Adamson filmed. She described the “ripple effects” on their family, noting Adamson abused his position to “exploit the most vulnerable people around him.”
“Justice in this case would need to start with repairing the damage he’s done,” the woman said. “But I don’t think he has the capacity for that.”
The second individual to read a victim impact statement was a woman who was in jail at the Olmsted County ADC.
“While I was incarcerated, I was subjected to a lot of treatment that no human should ever endure,” the woman told the court.
She said she constantly replays the trauma in her mind, claiming that the treatment she received was not only cruel but “an abuse of power.” The woman asked the court for justice, saying this behavior should not be occurring.
“The system needs to be changed,” she concluded. “I am not gonna be silent anymore.”
Prosecutor Scott Springer requested that the court align its sentence with the plea agreement, noting that the federal sentence was six times longer than the sentence Adamson could receive in state court.
Adamson’s attorney, Zach Bauer, also asked the court to stick to the plea agreement. Adamson then delivered a brief statement and began by saying he didn’t know how to “correctly apologize.”
“I don’t think anything I would say would bring anyone any peace at this point anyways,” Adamson said, tearfully. “It wouldn’t help, and I understand that.”
After accepting the plea agreement, Bueltel imposed the 364-day sentence.
“Mr. Adamson, unfortunately you lost your moral compass somewhere along the line,” the judge said.
“You truly did abuse your position of power and trust, and the victims will have to work towards understanding a way to heal — if possible.”
A joint undercover investigation by the Rochester Police Department and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Nov. 1, 2023, alleged that Adamson attempted to meet a teenage girl after having a sexually charged conversation and exchange of messages.
An RPD detective posing as a 13-year-old girl received a chat message from Adamson that led to a conversation in which Adamson offered to buy alcohol in exchange for the girl doing various sexual acts, the complaint said.
While Adamson was talking to the RPD detective, he started another conversation with a Minnesota BCA agent posing as a 14-year-old girl.
Adamson sent a selfie to the agent that appeared to be taken in an Olmsted County courtroom.
The complaint said he requested to meet both of the undercover officers he believed to be teenage girls.
Around 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2023, law enforcement watched Adamson leave his workplace at the Olmsted County Work Release Center and drive to meet one of the agents he believed to be a child at a predetermined location. At the location, he made contact with a law enforcement decoy and was placed under arrest.
The charges filed in December 2023 allege that Adamson owned a hard drive that contained nude screenshots of women being detained at the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center in addition to videos and images that include underage girls in different bathrooms that appeared to be taken without their consent.
Following Adamson’s release from jail on Nov. 6, he told his wife he planned to destroy two hard drives at their residence but was prevented from doing so because his wife locked the hard drives in a safe, prosecutors previously alleged.
Adamson’s wife contacted RPD about the hard drives and officers examined several terabytes of data on Adamson’s electronic devices over several weeks. Police found numerous screen captures from surveillance cameras inside the ADC that depicted at least three different women detained in the facility in various states of undress. Police also found a screen grab from Adamson’s body camera that showed a woman lifting her shirt up.
In addition to the jailhouse images, police found hundreds of videos and images from hidden cameras placed in at least five different restrooms that feature three adult women and three girls between the ages of 10 and 20 years old. The series was taken between 2015 and 2019 and shows them in various states of undress.
Investigators have identified the four women captured on the ADC’s surveillance cameras but they do not know the identity of the people in the restroom series.
Law enforcement also found multiple images of child sexual abuse material of at least three girls between 8 and 12 years old that depicted them performing sexual acts.
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