By HOLLY GASKILL
Sentenced in the Wells County Circuit Court Sept. 27, Sebastian Hubble, 30, will spend 10 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections and his lifetime on the sex offender’s registry.
Hubble was arrested in April following a year-long investigation by the Bluffton Police Department. In pleading guilty to the highest charge issued — child exploitation, a Level 4 felony — 14 additional charges were dismissed. These charges were all related to voyeurism and possession of child pornography.
The police investigation discovered Hubble had possession of lewd images of minors, including images of child sexual assault. Hubble also secretly took inappropriate images of children under his care.
A significant portion of the conversation during the sentencing hearing followed Hubble’s computer encryption. BPD Det. Cliff Thomas testified that the computer seized in a warrant from Hubble contained malware that neither he nor the cybercrimes unit of the Indiana State Police were able to unlock. Thomas ultimately contacted the FBI.
“I have never sent a piece of equipment that (the ISP) weren’t able to get into,” Thomas stated.
Most evidence that was able to be discovered from the malware was found on Hubble’s cell phone. Prosecutor Colin Andrews alleged that this level of encryption — and without Hubble’s assistance — ultimately prevented the investigation.
Larry Mock, Hubble’s lawyer, noted that Hubble had been cooperative with the investigation and exercised his right not to volunteer information to the police. Mock affirmed Hubble’s clean background and service in the Air Force as a low-risk to re-offend according to the Indiana Risk Assessment System. He asked Judge Kenton Kiracofe to consider a six-year sentence with a portion suspended and on probation.
“Not to downplay what happened — it’s a very bad thing,” Mock stated. “But I think if we look at the things in total, the defendant is not even close to being the worst of the worst, given that this is his first offense.
Andrews recognized Hubble appears to be low-risk, but there were “some troubling aspects.” Andrews referenced Hubble’s personal impact statement, alleging Hubble displayed a pattern of removing himself from responsibility. According to Andrews, this included Hubble’s claims he didn’t remember many of the actions, his belief the actions were about control, not sexual gratification, and multiple instances where he did not name the victims involved.
“The person we’re dealing with is clearly shielding himself — maybe even internally, not just from the court — from his own horrible actions here,” Andrews stated.
Andrews asked Kiracofe to consider a 12-year sentence with nine to 10 years executed with the IDOC.
In closing, Andrews also referenced the gallery of people present for the hearing.
“The wide-ranging effect that this has on our system and our society … this person is a danger to society,” Andrews said. “By his own statement he implicates himself — the more he tries to assuage his own guilt, the more he shows he needs a lot of time away to confront himself, confront his actions, and make reparations for those he’s harmed.”
Hubble’s crimes were reported by a woman identified as his wife in the probable cause affidavit. She delivered a victim impact statement on behalf of herself and the children involved.
The woman stated she had married Hubble in 2021 and found child pornography on his computer approximately one year later. At the time, she had three children in the home — her two children under five years old and her 7-year-old niece whose parents were struggling with addiction. She was also five months pregnant with Hubble’s child, which she described as a high-risk pregnancy.
She advised she had discovered images on Hubble’s laptop from a Russian website commonly used for trading sexually explicit images of children. It was later discovered during the police investigation that Hubble had also taken inappropriate images and videos of her child and niece. The woman now believes he had done so to obtain images from the website — an idea that was also echoed by Thomas.
She additionally noted that while the investigation ensued, she was denied a protective order because of Hubble’s lack of criminal history. Hubble allegedly moved just a few streets away from the home.
“I lived in deep fear of what might happen to me if he found out (I had reported him) for over a year because of behavior he had exhibited in the past,” she stated. “My (children) both went through a catastrophic loss to their emotional safety when the man they saw as a father was suddenly gone and deemed unsafe. They watched as I struggled to pay bills and keep myself alive while I was on continuous IV fluids, medication, and home health care during a very high-risk pregnancy.”
Furthermore, she emphasized that the investigation was prolonged due to the malware on Hubble’s computer. By not allowing the detectives access, she claimed Hubble was preventing other victims from receiving justice.
In her closing statement, she asked Kiracofe to consider what she believed Hubble could be sentenced to as a first-time offender — eight years in the IDOC and 10 years on the sexual offender registry. This, she calculated, would protect her now one-year-old daughter until her 18th birthday.
She concluded, “With this sentence, time served, time off for good behavior, and his time on the registry, my daughter will have the ability to spend her entire childhood with him identified as a sexual predator and receive the protective benefits that apply from (Hubble) being supervised on the registry.”
Hubble later accepted the opportunity to provide a statement to the court, during which he apologized to and thanked the police and prosecution. He then described a pattern of “sexuality morality issues similar to many youthful men” he had struggled with, which he stated had become secretive and repressed due to his religious background. Hubble claimed he had tried counseling, but his pedophilia was a deeper issue he had not discussed in counseling and was unaware of.
Hubble said he had always tried to be a good person, including in seeking faith in his incarceration thus far. He added that he respected his former partner’s desire for protection but claimed he had always tried to support her.
“This isn’t who I want to be,” Hubble stated. “I never wanted to hurt her or those kids, and knowing I have — I’m going to have to live with the rest of my life. That will never change, but what I can change is putting my best foot forward and trying to be the best I can be for them, myself, for the state, and the community I live in. That’s who I want to be. I am just so heartbroken and sorry for all this.”
In taking the sentencing under advisement, Kiracofe asked the prosecution about the 14 dismissed charges. Andrews advised these charges were largely dismissed due to the agreement, not lack of evidence.
Kiracofe then recognized the aforementioned mitigating and aggravating factors within the case but drew concern with how Hubble related himself to the actions.
He stated: “Mr. Hubble indicated he has a problem in this area, yet it’s one thing to say, ‘I have a problem.’ (If) an alcoholic has a problem, (they) don’t go work in a bar (and) don’t go work in a liquor store. Here, you have a problem, and you have allowed small children to come into your home. So, while I’m sympathetic in some way to your situation, you put yourself in the situation where you could victimize people, and that’s not acceptable.”
Kiracofe further discussed the content of the downloaded images, some of which displayed child sexual assault, and several concerning internet searches related to the assault of minors. However, he said it was one issue to have sought out child pornography and “quite another” to create it with children under his care.
He also noted that, while Hubble was not required to unlock the computer, his inaction also denied the woman and her family the knowledge of whether or not images were distributed online.
“Mr. Hubble’s actions have changed the trajectory of a lot of folks’ lives, especially these children’s lives,” Kiracofe stated. “They’re victims now. And even more, he has now a child who was even further victimized — unintentionally, but a victim nonetheless.”
Hubble was sentenced to 12 years with two years suspended — with the intention to monitor Hubble’s actions on probation — and will be registered as a sex offender for his entire life.
Hubble will receive 152 days credit for time already served and was also ordered to pay $189 in court costs, a $100 child abuse prevention fee, a $500 sexual assault victims assistance fee, and a $100 administrative fee.
holly@news-banner.com
