CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – WASHINGTON – Eleanor Hunton Hoppe, 46, of Charlottesville, was sentenced to 135 months in prison for distributing child pornography in a plot to molest an eight-year-old girl.
The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro of the District of Columbia on Thursday.
In April 2024, Hoppe pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography. The terms of Hoppe’s plea agreement call for her to serve 135 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release. She will also have to register as a sex offender for a minimum period of 25 years.
According to court documents, in late February 2023, an undercover law enforcement officer encountered Hoppe on a social media site where individuals discuss their sexual interest in children and exchange child sexual abuse material. Hoppe distributed images of child pornography to the undercover officer and repeatedly expressed an interest in sexually abusing his purported 8-year-old daughter.
On March 16, 2023, Hoppe arranged to have the undercover officer bring his daughter from D.C. to a motel in Warrenton, Va., where she would meet them to sexually abuse the child. Police arrested Hoppe when she arrived at the hotel.
Hoppe’s ex-husband is Joel Hoppe, a federal magistrate judge in Virginia’s Western District. Following the arrest of his then-wife, he successfully sought full custody of their two daughters, then aged 10 and 12, in April 2023.
