Undocumented Immigrant Indicted on Child Pornography Charge

ST. LOUIS – A undocumented immigrant living in St. Charles County, Missouri was indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis and accused of receiving images containing child sexual abuse material.

Francisco J. Ocana-Talamantes, 46, was indicted on one count of receiving child pornography. The indictment accuses him of receiving those images via the internet between Feb. 11, 2020, and March 14, 2024.

Charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt.  Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Ocana-Talamantes is already in custody.

A motion seeking to have him held in jail until trial says that Ocana-Talamantes is in the country illegally.

“The FBI and our local law enforcement partners had been investigating Franscisco Ocana-Talamantes for his alleged crimes against children,” said Special Agent in Charge Ashley Johnson of the FBI St. Louis Division. “Because this defendant had entered the country illegally, the FBI was able to expedite his federal indictment and arrest by leveraging our assistance to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement action.”

The charge carries a potential penalty of at least five years in prison, with a maximum of 20 years.

The FBI, the St. Charles Police Department and the St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuted the case. 

This case was brought 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 the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.