Hot Springs Man Sentenced To Over 8 Years In Federal Prison For Child Pornography Offense

 Hot Springs, Arkansas – David Clay Fowlkes, First Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced today that Alejandro Aurioles, age 32, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was sentenced today to 97 months in federal prison without the possibility of parole followed by 10 years of supervised release on one count of accessing the Internet with the intent to view child pornography.  The Honorable Chief Judge Susan O. Hickey presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Hot Springs.

According to court records, on October 26, 2018, detectives with the Hot Springs Police Department received a Cybertip report of child pornographic images being downloaded to a Hot Springs telephone number.  Detectives traced the phone number back to a cell phone associated with Aurioles.  On or about December 21, 2018, Aurioles was arrested on a state charge and admitted to Hot Springs detectives that he had downloaded images of child pornography using his cell phone and sold those images to others on two occasions.  During a search of his two cellular phones, thousands of child pornography images and videos of child sexual abuse were forensically recovered. 

Aurioles was indicted in March of 2019 and entered a guilty plea to a related case in September of 2019. 

This case was investigated by the Hot Springs Police Department and the FBI.  Assistant United States Attorneys Kim Harris and Ben Wulff prosecuted the case for the United States.

This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.