Prosecution Brought Under Project Safe Childhood
ALBUQUERQUE - Acting U.S. Attorney James D. Tierney and Special Agent in Charge Terry Wade of the FBI’s Albuquerque Division announced that Jason Loera was sentenced this afternoon in federal court for his conviction on a child pornography charge. Loera, 48, a former political consultant and resident of Albuquerque, N.M., who recently resided in Los Angeles, Calif., until his remand into federal custody in Oct. 2016, was sentenced to 97 months in prison followed by ten years of supervised release for receiving a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Loera will be required to register as a sex offender after he completes his prison sentence.
The FBI arrested Loera in Los Angeles in June 2013, on an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. The indictment charged Loera with two counts of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. According to the indictment, Loera committed these offenses in in Bernalillo County, N.M.
The indictment against Loera subsequently was superseded twice, most recently on March 8, 2016. The six-count second superseding indictment charged Loera with three counts of receiving child pornography and three counts of possessing child pornography. It alleged that Loera received child pornography on three occasions between March 31, 2010 and April 15, 2010, and that he possessed child pornography on a laptop computer and two CDs on Nov. 20, 2012.
“This case is another example of the law enforcement community’s commitment to identifying, locating and prosecuting predators who exploit children," said Acting U.S. Attorney James D. Tierney. “Prosecuting those who possess child pornography is crucial to destabilizing this black market and undermining the normalization of child sexual abuse."
“The FBI is committed to fighting the sexual exploitation of children," said Special Agent in Charge Terry Wade of the FBI’s Albuquerque Division. “A key part of that effort is the New Mexico Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory, which brings together highly trained FBI and task force officers to track down digital clues. We will continue to work with our partners to uncover those who engage in child pornography and make sure they are no longer able to victimize innocent children."
On April 22, 2016, Loera entered a guilty plea to Count 3 of the second superseding indictment charging him with receiving child pornography on April 15, 2010. In his plea agreement, Loera admitted using his laptop computer to download from the internet an electronic file that he knew contained child pornography. The file contained 45 images of a prepubescent girl, many of which showed the girl engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Loera also admitted that when the FBI searched his residence on Nov. 20, 2012, he knowingly possessed child pornography on his laptop computer and two CDs. Loera admitted that he had more than 600 images of child pornography, some of which depicted violence.
The case was investigated by the Albuquerque Division of the FBI and the New Mexico Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristopher N. Houghton prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
