Jayme Shannon was found in a motel with a naked 15-year-old boy in 2013 after having been jailed in a similar case in 2003.
NEWARK --Twelve years ago, Jayme Shannon was convicted and sentenced to jail for nearly three years for a sex crime involving a minor.
On Tuesday, Shannon was sentenced again on a new set of charges involving a sex crime. He got more than 21 years.
Shannon, 53, pleaded guilty last year to charges that in 2013, he met a 15-year-old boy through an online chat room, went to his home in New York and took him to a motel in Fort Lee to have sex with him.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Esther Salas ordered the ex-New York City police officer to spend the next 21 years and three months in prison, saying Shannon is a community danger.
"There is an absolute need to protect children from Mr. Shannon," Salas said.
Local police and the Bergen County Sheriff's Department found Shannon -- who was convicted in 2003 and had served a nearly three-year sentence for a similar offense -- in the Skyview Motel in Fort Lee with a 15-year-old boy on Oct. 14, 2013.
Shannon has lived in East Brunswick and East Windsor.
During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, defense attorney Benjamin Morton said he would not ask Salas to give Shannon a lighter sentence than guidelines recommended, but did ask her to stay at the lower end of those guidelines. Considering that one of the two counts to which Shannon pleaded guilty required a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, going beyond the guidelines would amount to a virtual life sentence, Morton said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Hafetz said Shannon obviously had not been able to control himself, noting that in his 2003 arrest, Shannon had arranged a tryst with a person he thought was a 14-year-old boy. That individual was an undercover police officer.
As a former police officer, Hafetz said, Shannon "should know better."
Salas said Shannon's crime was "as bad as it gets," adding that he could have continued with counseling after serving 33 months in prison for the 2003 conviction. However, Shannon did not take that opportunity, she said.
Police find naked juvenile in sex offender's Fort Lee motel room
Salas also noted that Shannon has had to spend the past year in protective custody at the Essex County Correctional Facility after inmates, using smuggled cell phones and tablets, learned about Shannon's background and threatened him.
"He has only himself to blame," Salas said.
For his part, Shannon, wearing a canary yellow prison jumpsuit, apologized to the victim who was not in the courtroom. "I'm sorry I put you through this horrendous ordeal," he said.
Shannon also apologized to his brother and family and thanked his ex-wife, who he said stood by him.
Shannon will have seven years of supervision after serving his sentence. Shannon asked that Salas recommend incarcerating him in the federal prison in Devens, Mass., which has treatment programs for sex offenders.
Tim Darragh may be reached at tdarragh@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @timdarragh. Find NJ.com on Facebook.