Former Fort Stockton Teacher Sentenced to Federal Prison for Receipt and Possession of Child Pornography

In Alpine today, a federal judge sentenced Javier Carlos Arteta Franco, a 59-year-old Venezuelan National and former elementary school teacher in Fort Stockton, to 160 months in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for receipt and possession of child pornography announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Waldemar Rodriguez, El Paso Division.

On July 28, 2016, 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.

“HSI and our law enforcement partners continue to police cyber space searching for predators who exploit the most vulnerable segment of our society — our children,” said Waldemar Rodriguez, special agent in charge of HSI El Paso. “This case is especially disturbing because of the perpetrator’s position of public trust and access to children.”

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 prosecuted 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.