A former elementary school teacher in La Puente has been indicted on two counts for receiving child pornography and two counts of possession, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said Friday.
Steven Pilar, 47, had been scheduled to face a federal grand jury indictment in US District Court in downtown LA on Friday. He was charged in July and arrested earlier this month in Las Vegas, where he lives. At the time, he was ordered held without bail.
The indictment alleged that Pilar used BitTorrent, a digital file-sharing protocol, to knowingly receive over 400 videos and images of child sexual abuse material in February and April 2020. At the time, Pilar was teaching at an elementary school in La Puente; he no longer works there, according to the US Attorney’s office.
“This defendant, whose previous job put him in a position of trust with children, is accused of participating in an underground market that deals in the sexual exploitation of children,” Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “Protecting children from sexual predators is critical and my office will be relentless in our efforts to punish those who commit these crimes.”
Pilar would face a mandatory minimum sentence of at least five years in federal prison if convicted. The case was investigated by the FBI and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.