By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com
An El Dorado County man has pleaded guilty in federal court to receiving child pornography.
Charles Johnson, 47, of Garden Valley entered the plea Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Edward Garcia.
According to court documents, images of child pornography were found on Johnson's work laptop computer after he was terminated by his employer for allegedly stealing trade secrets. The computer was returned to the company on July 27, 2007, and the firm sent it to a private forensic lab to see whether any company trade secrets had been stored improperly on the computer. The forensic analyst found evidence of child pornography.
A forensic review of the laptop showed that a new operating system had been installed on July 21, 2007, with a registered owner of "CJ," according to a federal Department of Justice news release. The forensic examiner was able to recover earlier file systems, 2,100 of which were images of child pornography that had been downloaded onto the computer between Sept. 27, 2005 and June 18, 2007.
In addition, 80 videos of child pornography were recovered.
Web files on the computer showed that Johnson had knowingly accessed and used numerous pay sites to build his child pornography collection.
The case resulted from a joint investigation by the Folsom Police Department, El Dorado County Sheriff's Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Crime Task Force.
Johnson is to be sentenced Jan. 21. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 321-5287.
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