A Sacramento man has been sentenced to three years in prison for possessing child pornography.
Anthony Gordon Pollo, 23, pleaded guilty July 11 and was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. His prison term is to be followed by 10 years of supervised release.
According to court documents, law enforcement officials identified computers at Pollo's residence offering known files of child pornography through a file-sharing network. A search warrant was executed April 20, and detectives did not find a computer. At first, Pollo said that he had thrown out his hard drive but later admitted that the hard drive was at a local repair shop, according to a federal Department of Justice news release.
When detectives obtained a search warrant for the computer and forensically examined it, they found 501 videos showing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, with several of the videos showing scenes of bondage and rape, officials said.
Pollo told investigators that he had been downloading and viewing child pornography for several years and that he knew it was wrong. He said he would gather a collection, possess it for a period of time, then reformat his hard drive to delete the files in an effort to control his attraction to children. He would then use a file-sharing network to rebuild his collection, going through this cycle several times.
The case resulted from an investigation by the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a federally and state-funded task force managed by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and composed of agents from federal, state and local agencies. The task force investigates online child exploitation crimes, including child pornography, enticement and sex trafficking.
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