Defendant Used a Neighbor’s Non-Password Protected Wireless Router to Access and Download Child Pornography
DALLAS - A 47-year-old man from Mesquite, Texas, Jesus Paramo, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle to the statutory maximum of 10 years in federal prison, following his guilty plea in March 2016 to an Information charging one count of possession of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Paramo, who has been on bond since his arrest in August 2014, was remanded into custody following the sentencing hearing.
The investigation began when a detective with the Sherman Police Department, working in an undercover capacity, noticed that a particular computer with a specific IP address was making files of child pornography, many with Spanish names, available for sharing. The Sherman Police Department contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) who learned that a detective in the Mesquite Police Department had downloaded files containing child pornography from the same IP address.
Law enforcement executed a search warrant at a residence in Mesquite in February 2014, however no evidence of any file-sharing computer program or child pornography was found. In fact, no one at the residence spoke Spanish.
Further investigation revealed, however, that a neighbor, Paramo, had been using this neighbor’s non-password-protected wireless router to download child pornography onto his computers. Paramo, who speaks both Spanish and English, admitted downloading at least 82 videos and 10 images of child pornography, including images and videos of prepubescent children, including infants and toddlers.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Project Safe Childhood (PSC) initiative. PSC is a department initiative launched in May 2006 to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, tribal and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. Since FY 2011, the Department of Justice has filed 20,260 PSC cases against 19,111 defendants. These cases include prosecutions of child sex trafficking; sexual abuse of a minor or ward; child pornography offenses; obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children; selling or buying of children; and many more statutes. To learn more about PSC’s work, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/psc.
ICE HSI, the Mesquite Police Department and the Sherman Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Walker was in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
