NORRISTOWN, PA — A Souderton man and former Montgomery County sheriff's deputy has been sentenced to prison receiving and distributing child pornography in what prosecutors called an "appalling" case.

Matthew Laver, 38, will spend the next 12 years behind bars, U.S. District Court Judge Michael M. Baylson announced on Wednesday. Laver pleaded guilty in Sept. 2019 to numerous charges, after authorities said they found a collection of nearly 4,000 images and videos depicting sexual abuse of children.

Some of the videos showed children as young as infants being sexually assaulted and raped, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Laver received and distributed the videos while he was employed as a sheriff's deputy in Montgomery County, according to officials.

"This is an appalling case," U.S. Attorney William McSwain said in a statement. "The defendant was a member of a law enforcement organization charged with enforcing the law and protecting the public, but he was actually a child predator."

Laver began downloading and then sharing the illicit files back in July 2018, authorities said. An investigation began that September when the Bucks County ICAC Task Force discovered that someone in Montgomery County was spreading child pornography on a file sharing network

Detectives connected to Laver's computer and were able to trace it to his residence in Souderton.

In Laver's home, police found videos and images depicting minors engaged in sex acts on his laptop, iPad, iPhone, and mulitiple external hard drives. They also found two cases of DVDs and CDs containing child porn.