A federal judge sentenced state shark expert Randy Honebrink to two months in jail Thursday for possessing child pornography.

Honebrink, 58, has until Oct. 16 to begin serving his jail term.

After the jail term, Honebrink will have to submit to probation-like court supervision for five years, the first 12 months of which will be under electronically-monitored home detention. During those 12 months Honebrink will have to undergo sex offender treatment. He will also have to register as a convicted sex offender.

U.S. District Leslie E. Kobayashi also fined Honebrink $5,000.

Defense lawyer William Harrison said both he and Honebrink are happy with the sentence and that Kobayashi realized that this case is different than other child pornography cases, which often involve hundreds or thousands of images.

Honebrink pleaded guilty in January to possessing on his computer and computer hard drive two images of two boys between 12 and 14 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

According to federal court sentencing guidelines, Honebrink was facing a prison term of between 24 and 30 months.

Kobayashi said she handed Honebrink a sentence below the advisory guidelines because he voluntarily sought treatment, his therapist reports that Honebrink is doing well under treatment, he has a support network that includes his church community and his offense involved very few images.

Honebrink apologized in court for his conduct and said his actions shamed himself and his mother.

He is the information and education specialist for the state land department’s Division of Aquatic Resources and the spokesman and coordinator of the Hawaii Shark Task Force. 

His job involves talking to children at schools. Harrison said Honebrink has not done that since pleading guilty.

In a written statement released following the sentencing, Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairman William Aila said, “The judge has ruled in this case. (Honebrink’s) employment status with the department will continue to be considered a personnel matter, thus, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Honebrink said in court Thursday that he hopes to continue to serve the public in some manner.