SAN BENITO — Phillip Emmanuel Lopez will be in United States District Court facing charges for having child pornography on his computer.
Lopez has a detention hearing in Brownsville tomorrow at 1:30 p.m.
New information has revealed, Lopez, a San Benito resident, is also a school teacher at Ed Downs Elementary in San Benito.
According to the Ed Downs school website, Lopez is an instructional aide in special education.
He was arrested May 3 by Federal Agents for downloading child pornography at his home.
Lopez was not at school and school officials did not return phone calls to comment on the situation yesterday.
Lopez is being held without bond by the U.S. Marshals.
He was advised of his charges and rights on May 4.
Lopez waived a court-appointed attorney. He has sought legal council with attorney Reynaldo Garza III.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Rio Grande Valley Child Exploitation Investigations Task Force served Lopez with federal search warrants at the residence.
Authorities seized three laptop computers and a cellular phone during the search of the residence.
According to court records, during the search of the residence, evidence of child pornography was discovered on one of the computers.
Lopez admitted to being the owner of the computers and the phone.
Lopez also admitted to possessing and downloading child pornography over the past several years using all three of the computers.
He also admitted he knew the software he used to download the child pornography would allow his downloaded files to be shared to others.
Authorities are still undergoing a full forensic examination of the digital media of Lopez’s computer files.
He is scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ignacio Torteya III on Wednesday afternoon.
