A Porterville couple have been jailed on federal child pornography charges, a case that authorities say is unusual because such investigations almost always ensnare men.
According to a criminal complaint filed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement senior special agent Mike Prado, Aaron Clark, 19, and Diana Orantes, 20, admitted to viewing child pornography movies while they engaged in sexual activity.
They are being held in the Fresno County Jail, where Orantes is listed as Orantes-Lara. They made an initial appearance Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Beck. The pair was arrested Wednesday.
According to Prado's complaint, authorities found out about the couple because they downloaded and exchanged child pornography through "peer-to-peer" networks -- which enable digital files to be transferred directly from one computer to another.
In most cases, authorities said, such investigations lead to a man who either lives alone or has a spouse or girlfriend who is unaware of his activities.
When Visalia resident Roberta Sue Rigsbee pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in March 2006, authorities said then that they did not know of any other female defendants who had been prosecuted on those charges by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fresno.
After authorities arrived at the West Grand Avenue residence Clark and Orantes shared, the couple was interviewed separately.
Clark, a member of the Army National Guard who was scheduled to be deployed to Kosovo this October, told investigators that he was sexually aroused by sadomasochistic sex acts and by the sexual abuse of children.
Orantes initially said she watched child pornography because of Clark but later changed her story, Prado wrote in his affidavit, admitting she was not only an active participant but also watched and downloaded child pornography.
Prado wrote that Clark and Orantes were primarily interested in children ages 3 to 12 years being sexually abused and that they also did role-playing, with Clark pretending to be Orantes' abductor and Orantes pretending to be a young girl.
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Originally Posted by katyk
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