A Santa Claus performer in Texas claiming to have a child pornography addiction is facing federal charges in connection with the downloading of explicit photos and videos–with some of the children depicted being as young as four-years-old.
Authorities arrested 37-year-old Reynaldo Ramirez at his Corpus Christi home after serving a search warrant connected to the child pornography case. Ramirez is also facing federal child pornography charges, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed .
According to court records obtained by Breitbart Texas, the case began on November 8 when a Corpus Christi detective looking into a file sharing system called ARES traced two child pornography files to one computer Internet Protocol address.
One of the files contained a pornographic video of a 4-year-old girl. Authorities were able to track the computer to a Corpus Christi home and on December 16 carried our a raid at Ramirez’s house.
When authorities went to the house, Ramirez told them that he had been looking at child porn for at least 6 years and had managed to obtain more than 1,000 images of children, pre-teens and teens under the age of 18, the criminal complaint revealed.
While authorities were searching the property, they also discovered a Santa Claus costume and other Christmas themed items. During questioning, Ramirez told authorities that he had been performing as Santa Claus for 15-years throughout South Texas. The man said he had been scheduled to perform four separate performances during the weekend of December 19 and he had multiple other events scheduled throughout the month.
Corpus Christi initially arrested Ramirez on state charges, however agents with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations have also looked into the case and charged him on federal pornography charges.
Ramirez has been in state custody, however he is also expected to face a federal judge to be formally charged. If convicted of the federal charges, Ramirez faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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