Jose Antonio Soto, 41, sentenced for producing child pornography

MINNEAPOLIS – Earlier today in federal court, a 41-year-old Texas man who used to live
in St. Paul Park was sentenced for producing pornographic images of a minor female over a
three-year period. United States District Court Judge David S. Doty sentenced Jose Antonio Soto
to 360 months in prison on one count of production of child pornography. Soto was indicted on
January 11, 2011, and pleaded guilty on June 29, 2011.

In his plea agreement, Soto admitted that between March of 2004 and February of 2007, he
employed, used, persuaded, induced, or coerced a minor female into engaging in sexually
explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of that conduct on videotape. The
videotapes were made at Soto’s St. Paul Park residence. Soto is currently incarcerated in Texas,
serving a ten-year sentence for possession of child pornography.

This case was the result of an investigation by the Minnesota Cyber Crimes Task Force,
which is sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service; the San
Antonio Police Department in Texas; and the St. Paul Park Police Department. It was prosecuted
by Assistant U.S. Attorney Clifford B. Wardlaw.

Presently, the Justice Department is funding a study concerning the correlation between
involvement in child pornography and the hands-on sexual abuse of children. A 2008 study
(The Butner Study) published in the Journal of Family Violence found that up to 80 percent of
federal inmates incarcerated for possession, receipt, or distribution of child pornography also
admitted to hands-on sexual abuse of children, ranging from touching to rape.

The U.S. Department of Justice is committed to combating the sexual exploitation of
children, particularly via the Internet. In Fiscal Year 2010, 2,235 defendants pleaded guilty to
federal child pornography charges, 2,222 of whom were sentenced to prison. In Fiscal Year
2009, 2,083 defendants were sentenced to prison on child pornography charges. For more
information about these efforts, please visit the Department’s Project Safe Childhood website,
at www.projectsafechildhood.gov

http://www.justice.gov/usao/mn/sotosentenced.html