LOS ANGELES—On Friday, May 22, the U.S. Department of Justice that a Los Angeles County resident pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of possession of child pornography.

The 35-year-old Cudahy native, Jesse Beltran, was previously convicted in 2008 in the Los Angeles Superior Court of two counts of committing “lewd and lascivious acts on a child younger than 14 years of age.” He was sentenced to eight years in state prison.

Beltran’s current offence stems from when he was on parole in May 2019 following his release from prison. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents searched his home and found a smartphone contains 256 images and 14 videos of child pornography. 

Beltran entered his guilty plea on Wednesday, May 20 before U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, and admitted that some of the victims in the “sexually explicit images and videos” were prepubescent children. 

Gutierrez has scheduled a sentencing hearing on August 10, nd the defendant faces a mandatory federal prison sentence of between 10 to 20 years.

The case prosecutor is Assistant United States Attorney Jeremiah M. Levine of the General Crimes Section,