JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 22-year-old Jacksonville man pleaded guilty Thursday to receiving images and videos depicting child pornography over the Internet.
Prosecutors said Joaquin Marrero knowingly received visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct over the Internet.
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He faces five to 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, and a potential life term of supervised release. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to court documents, an undercover agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations determined that a host computer using a particular Internet Protocol address in Jacksonville was hosting child pornography on the Internet. The agent was able to download several videos depicting child pornography from the host computer.
Further investigation revealed that the IP address was being used by someone in Jacksonville where Marrero lived.
On March 22, law enforcement officers executed a federal search at Marrero's home. He and another person were there at the time.
The agents seized, among other things, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, and a USB thumb drive. Shortly after the computer media was seized at Marrero's home, an analysis of the desktop computer showed that it contained about 116 video files containing child pornography. Nine of the files downloaded by the agent were found, and seven of those files had been copied to the USB thumb drive, which contained a total of 125 videos of child pornography.
The laptop computer contained five videos of child pornography. The images and videos depicting child pornography had been downloaded by Marrero via the Internet using a popular file sharing program and saved to his computer, according to court documents.