Former Fort Stockton Teacher Pleads Guilty to Federal Child Pornography Charges

Javier Carlos Arteta Franco, a 58-year-old Venezuelan National and former elementary school teacher in Fort Stockton, faces between five and 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty this afternoon to child pornography charges announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Waldemar Rodriguez, El Paso Division.

Appearing before United States Magistrate Judge David Counts in Pecos, Arteta Franco pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.  By pleading guilty, Arteta Franco admitted that from December 2014 to August 2015, he used a file-sharing program to download to his personal computer videos and images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

On August 19, 2015, HSI agents executed a search warrant at the defendant’s residence and seized his laptop computer.  A forensics analysis of the computer revealed the presence of child pornography that had been downloaded from the Internet.  Arteta Franco has remained in federal custody since his arrest by HSI agents on August 19, 2015.  A sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.

This case was investigated by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Alpine with assistance from the Fort Stockton Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigations Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandy Stewart is prosecuting this case on behalf of the government.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about PSC, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/resources.html.