Manhattan Beach Therapist Gets Nearly 17 Years For Secretly Filming Girls

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — A Manhattan Beach family therapist who secretly recorded young girls inside a women’s restroom at his workplace was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 17 years in federal prison.

Joseph Toews, 31, was sentenced to 200 months — 16 years and eight months — by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Blumenfeld also fined Toews $50,000, ordered him to pay a $55,000 special assessment and imposed 25 years of supervised release following his prison term. Toews pleaded guilty June 23 to one count of production of child pornography and has been in federal custody since April 14.

According to court documents, Toews installed a video-recording device inside a stall in a publicly accessible women's restroom at his workplace in January 2023. The restroom was in the same building where Toews provided therapy services.

The device recorded minor victims, including girls who received therapy from Toews, prosecutors said. The FBI previously said the victims were believed to be between 8 and 12 years old. While the camera was operating, Toews captured at least 11 separate videos involving minor victims, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, Toews apologized to the children who were harmed and described his own behavior as "absolutely disgusting," according to the Los Angeles Times. Assistant U.S. Attorney Clifford D. Mpare told the court that Toews' conduct was deliberate and involved premeditation, the newspaper reported.

Toews also admitted in his plea agreement that between January 2023 and December 2025 he knowingly received child sexual abuse material, including sexually explicit videos of children that he purchased through darknet online video stores.

"His conduct was not a spur of the moment happening," federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. "Toews had been stockpiling CSAM prior to his decision to create CSAM of his own."