Say out loud that Jordan James Kirby is from Paradise, and it doesn’t sound right, even though he is from the Butte County town.
There was a lot that hadn’t sounded right to U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. about Kirby, a guy who used various identities on Facebook to offer $3,000 to $4,000 to women and girls for lascivious and sexually explicit photographs of them, purportedly so he could submit the photos to a modeling agency. Instead he sometimes used the photos to extort or attempt to extort sex acts with the victims.
Thus, mercy was not on the menu Friday at a hearing in Sacramento federal court, where Burrell gave Kirby 29 years in prison. Now 23, Kirby will be almost 50 when he gets out, even if he qualifies for the maximum reduction of 54 days a year for good behavior. Parole has been abolished in the federal system.