A Long Beach man faces between five and 30 years in prison for collecting and distributing more than 4,700 child pornography images and videos.
Andrew Alfonso Petrone admitted this month to committing the crimes before a trial in hopes U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna will eventually grant him leniency at sentencing.
An undercover Florida law enforcement officer used Petrone's Internet file sharing program in 2011 and downloaded several records including an image of a man raping a female minor under the age of 12, according to a Jan. 2013, federal indictment issued in Southern California.
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The indictment also alleged that officers recovered from Petrone's Acer Notebook 3,700 images and more than 1,000 videos of child pornography.
According to prosecutors, victims included children in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Montana and Hawaii.
The guilty plea prohibits Petrone–who used the online names “Redpen411” and “Pissinkids”–from any future contact with individuals under the age of 18 unless he has parental permission. He also must register as a sex offender, won't be able to live in sight of parks, schools and playgrounds, and will pay $32 a month for a federal computer monitoring program.
Judge Selna is scheduled today to formally accept the plea bargain inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse.
Petrone, who was born in 1989, is free from custody on $25,000 bail.
No sentencing date has been set.
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