|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Weslaco man to a little more than five years in prison for possession of child pornography.
Mark Andrew Casarez pleaded guilty to the charge in February.
He was initially arrested in late 2021 after the Texas Attorney General’s Office made an investigative referral from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to the Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Investigations Task Force regarding a Dropbox account suspected of uploading multiple files of child pornography.
Federal investigators eventually found Casarez had thousands of files of child sexual abuse material after executing a search warrant at his Weslaco residence.
Casarez cooperated with investigators and after his arrest, he admitted to the crime and told special agents about another account he had which contained about 19,000 files, according to a criminal complaint.
“A brief review of this account showed multiple files of child pornography, with victims that appeared to be as young or younger than eight years of age,” the complaint stated. “(Special agents) suspect a majority of the unreviewed files are also child pornography.”
Casarez told agents he began downloading the child sexual abuse material in 2016.
As part of a plea agreement, Casarez must register as a sex offender and pay restitution.
