Chronicle: Martín Santillán will be deported after serving time for child pornography
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- Martín Santillán will deported for child pornography.
- But before returning to his homeland, Martín will spend four years in federal prison.
- The images that the man sent to his friend were not landscapes.
When Martín Santillán arrived in the United States five years ago, he brought with him the idea of working very hard here for a decade to finish building his little house in Mexico and save enough to start a successful business when he returned. Unfortunately he will return when he planned but he’ll be empty-handed.
The next four years of his life will have to be spent in a US federal prison, after having committed a terrible crime that he called «a simple mistake.» It turns out that the Mexican man came up with the horrific idea of downloading some illicit photos and sharing them online.
Did his curiosity really get the better of him?
Martín insists that he came across some images online of children in indecent situations. He didn’t just look at them, he downloaded them to his cell phone and, to make it worse, he sent them to his best friend in Mexico.
«I’ll send you some great photos,» he told him. Tremendous mistake. What this 58-year-old man was unaware of is that all those websites where pedophiles publish this kind of images are continuously being monitored by the authorities in the United States. When someone here downloads anything like that, either to keep it or share it, their IP address is immediately registered.
He was surprised at his home in Georgia
One cold morning in January 2021, a few days after he shared pornographic images of children, just as Martín was preparing to go to work, he was in for a tremendous surprise. He was suddenly surrounded by a dozen police officers.
The uniformed officers had an order to arrest him and they immediately took his cell phone, where they found both the prohibited images that he had just sent, as well as many more. To make things worse, they found a fake Georgia driver’s license, which is also a felony. Filed Under: Chronicle deported Mexico photos
Realizing he was cornered, he decided to cooperate
Martín knew that they had plenty of evidence against him, so last week, when the time finally came for him to face the accusations, he decided to plead guilty and receive a less severe punishment. He was successful, because Steve C. Jones, the judge in charge of the case, only sentenced him to 50 months behind bars.
That’s just over four years, half the time he could have received if he had gone to trial. The possession and distribution of child pornography is a serious crime, something that many people ignore or simply do not care about. Most of these offenders believe that the crime is committed only by the one who takes the photos, but they are wrong. Filed Under: Chronicle deported Mexico photos
Martin learned his lesson too late
For now, Santillán is being held in the Hall County Detention Center, but in the next few days he will be transferred to a maximum security federal prison in Georgia where he will serve his sentence. Immediately after, he will be handed over to ICE for deportation.
The spokesman for the Hall Sheriff’s Office, Derreck Booth, explained that there’s no evidence that the photos or videos that Martin had on his device had been recorded locally, but that does not detract from the fact that he committed a serious crime. Thanks for reading my Chronicle today on MundoNow. Until next time. Filed Under: Chronicle deported Mexico photos