Democrat mayor's former chief of staff pleads guilty to child porn

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Jhovanny Martes-Rosario, the former chief of staff to Mayor Brian DePena, has pleaded guilty to child porn.

According to acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, the 50-year-old pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

He was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2023.

In February 2023, Martes-Rosario was identified by law enforcement as the likely user of a pair of accounts that contained child pornography. After a search they found an iPad that had child porn files on it. Levy said Martes-Rosario admitted he was the owner of the accounts and that he searched for and downloaded child porn to his personal iPad and later sent it to his email for storage.

He also admitted to searching and storing child porn for years.