Texas Man Sentenced for Producing Child Pornography

MINNEAPOLIS—Earlier today in federal court, a 41-year-old Texas man who used to live in St. Paul Park was sentenced for producing pornographic images of a minor female over a three-year period. United States District Court Judge David S. Doty sentenced Jose Antonio Soto to 360 months in prison on one count of production of child pornography. Soto was indicted on January 11, 2011, and pleaded guilty on June 29, 2011.

In his plea agreement, Soto admitted that between March of 2004 and February of 2007, he employed, used, persuaded, induced, or coerced a minor female into engaging in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of that conduct on videotape. The videotapes were made at Soto’s St. Paul Park residence. Soto is currently incarcerated in Texas, serving a 10-year sentence for possession of child pornography.

This case was the result of an investigation by the Minnesota Cyber Crimes Task Force, which is sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service; the San Antonio Police Department in Texas; and the St. Paul Park Police Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Clifford B. Wardlaw.

Presently, the Justice Department is funding a study concerning the correlation between involvement in child pornography and the hands-on sexual abuse of children. A 2008 study (The Butner Study) published in the Journal of Family Violence found that up to 80 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for possession, receipt, or distribution of child pornography also admitted to hands-on sexual abuse of children, ranging from touching to rape.

The U.S. Department of Justice is committed to combating the sexual exploitation of children, particularly via the Internet. In Fiscal Year 2010, 2,235 defendants pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges, 2,222 of whom were sentenced to prison. In Fiscal Year 2009, 2,083 defendants were sentenced to prison on child pornography charges. For more information about these efforts, please visit the Department’s Project Safe Childhood website, at Projectsafechildhood.gov.