MIAMI – A high school teacher in Hialeah has been sentenced to prison for possessing nearly 1,700 photos and 40 videos of child pornography, according to a report released by the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida.
A federal district judge in Miami sentenced 27-year-old Roberto Ortiz of Hialeah to 78 months of imprisonment, followed by eight years of supervised release, for possessing approximately 1,700 images and 40 videos of child pornography.
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According to the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida, Ortiz worked as a math teacher at American Senior High School in Hialeah from 2019 until his arrest on July 30, 2020. Before teaching there, he was a teacher at Jose Marti High School in Miami, as well as at Youth Co-Op Preparatory Charter School in Hialeah, a school which teaches students as young as five years old.
The report states that FBI Miami agents executed a search warrant for Ortiz’s home based on information presented to the court. After their investigation, they determined that a computer user at Ortiz’s home was downloading and sharing child pornography via peer-to-peer file-sharing software.
Due to this, the FBI Miami agents seized several electronic devices from his home, including a laptop belonging to Ortiz. That is when a forensic analysis of that laptop revealed over 1,700 files of child pornography, states the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida.
On April 13, Ortiz pled guilty to possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, which is child pornography.
This case is a part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke imposed the sentence, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sajjad Matin prosecuted it.