April 7, 2015

Essex County, New Jersey Man Admits Recording His Sexual Abuse of a Girl

NEWARK, NJ—A Newark man today admitted inducing a girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct while he took pictures and video, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Pedro Rios, 59, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Newark federal court to Counts One through Five and Count Seven of a superseding indictment charging him with sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography.

According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court:

Rios admitted that on five separate dates between March 4, 2008 and Nov. 8, 2011, he induced a girl under the age of 12 to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of taking pictures and videos of the child’s genitals and the sexually explicit conduct. Rios’s also admitted that he possessed images of child sexual abuse on Feb. 5, 2013. Several of the videos charged in the superseding indictment depict Rios’s abuse of the child victim in the cab of a tractor trailer truck.

Each count of sexual exploitation of a child to which Rios pleaded guilty carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison, a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The possession of child pornography charge carries a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Rios will be required to register as a sex offender. Sentencing is scheduled for July 7, 2015.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI Newark Division’s Child Exploitation Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankel; the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Acting Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray; and the N.J. Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory with the investigation leading to today’s plea.

The government is represented by Assistant United States Attorneys Danielle Alfonzo Walsman and Jonathan W. Romankow of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Newark.