SPOKANE - A U.S. Bureau of Reclamation employee from Soap Lake was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for downloading child pornography on a federal government computer.

Timothy Andrew Casey, 49, previously pled guilty in November in U.S. District Court to one charge of receipt of child pornography. It was found he used his work computer at the Ephrata Reclamation office to view and download child pornography images.

According to court records, The Department of Interior was monitoring its internal electronic network traffic in October 2012 when it discovered that a computer registered to Casey was used to download child pornography. An investigation revealed Casey had been using the computer since 2005 to search, view and download child pornography onto thumb drives to take home.

About 2,800 sexually explicit pictures and videos involving children were recovered from Casey's computer and three USB removable storage devises seized from his home in January 2013.

Casey was sentenced to five years in federal prison followed by 20 years of court supervision. One charge of possession of child pornography was dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

Casey has been employed by the Department of Interior at the Bureau of Reclamation Ephrata office since 2001.

"Federal employees are entrusted by the public to comport themselves lawfully and appropriately in the execution of their employment responsibilities," Michael C. Ormsby said, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. "Mr. Casey violated this trust by using a government computer to commit his criminal conduct. Such conduct by any federal employee is inexcusable and will not be tolerated."