Dennis RomeroFive Southern California suspects were arrested in an online child-porn sharing ring that traded content described to us as truly horrific.
The L.A. County Sheriff's Department announced the arrests today after the fifth suspect, 52-year-old Gregory MacClean of Palmdale, turned himself in this morning after initially fleeing when cops came to his Wittier workplace, deputies said.
(Cover your eyes and move on to the next story if you don't want to read about some really awful, heartbreaking crime):
The other suspects were ID'd as 19-year-old Rolando Garcia of South Los Angeles, 43-year-old Mario Aburto of West Covina, 72-year-old Jon Johnson of Fullerton, and 53-year-old Soraya Solimano of Palmdale.
All but Solimano were arrested on suspicion of possessing and distributing child pornography. She was arrested collared because she allegedly had drugs during warrant-based searches of the suspects' homes Wednesday and Thursday, the sheriff's department stated.
Credit: Suspects Garcia and Aburto via the LASD.
Detective John Howard told the Weekly that the five were nabbed following a investigation of a worldwide file-sharing “network.”
Although there could be suspects throughout the planet, the investigators focused on locals they allege were trading child porn, he said.
Although the five are SoCal-based, detectives don't necessarily believe they were sharing the content with each other, Howard said. Rather they were using the global network to post and retrieve imagery and video, he alleged.
Credit: Suspect MacClean via the LASD.
Some of the content is truly horrific, and detectives are still working to determine if the suspects only allegedly shared it, or if they had a hand in actually making it, Howard told us:
This is not a picture of some child on a rug on the floor. A cute little picture. Within the investigation of the entire group there were images depicting toddlers as young as
1-year-old being raped by an adult. That's what child porn is. This is nasty stuff.
Investigators say “hundreds” of videos of children ages 1 to 6 were found on the peer-to-peer network. The LASD states:
In this case, investigators proactively sought out persons offering to distribute child pornography on the Internet. Once sources were identified, investigators then actively downloaded videos and photos from the sources. After confirming it was illegal child pornography, investigators determined the locations from which the images were distributed, then linked them to the suspects who were doing the distributing.
Howard says the investigation is ongoing and it's possible more suspects could be arrested. In the meantime if you have info on these five or any possible victims, detectives would love to hear from you: 562-619-5257.
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