Choir teacher faces deportation to Mexico over 300 child porn videos
A Mexican national who worked as a choir teacher at a Texas middle school will serve eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to receiving 300 videos of child porn. Authorities say the 33-year-old man will likely be deported following his sentence.
Orlando Diaz-Ramirez was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane last Wednesday for receiving child porn from 22-year-old Israel Flores of Los Fresnos.
Diaz-Ramirez was a Rio Grande Valley middle school choir teacher at the time of the offense, according to news outlet KRGV.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a July 3 press release that the court learned during the hearing that Diaz-Ramirez had an additional eight GB of child porn on his Dropbox account. The court also noted that Diaz-Ramirez’s decision to seek out child porn “fed into the market for the production of child pornography and the possible victimization of future children.”
The case was launched in October 2020 when authorities discovered an IP address to Diaz-Ramirez’s residence in Donna was linked to a Dropbox account uploading child porn. When authorities executed a federal search warrant at the location in April 2021, Diaz-Ramirez admitted at the time that he had downloaded child porn through Kik and uploaded it to his Dropbox account. The choir teacher also said he had a USB drive containing child porn that he received from Flores.
Diaz-Ramirez pleaded guilty in September 2023 to receiving the 300 videos of child porn from Flores. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the content in the videos showed minors as young as 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults.
In addition to serving eight years in federal prison, Diaz-Ramirez was ordered to pay $24,000 to known victims, while Flores must pay $21,000. Flores, who was previously sentenced to eight years in federal prison, will have to register as a sex offender alongside Diaz-Ramirez. Both men must also serve five years on supervised release where their access to children and the internet will be restricted.
Diaz-Ramirez is not a U.S. citizen, as the state attorney’s office noted, and because of this, it's expected that the former middle school choir teacher will face deportation hearings after he's released from prison.
Homeland Security Investigations was responsible for the case, while Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Alexa D. Parcell, prosecuted the case.
“With today’s sentencing, HSI has removed a dangerous child predator from the community,” HSI Rio Grande Valley Deputy Special Agent in Charge Mark Lippa said in a statement Monday. “Preventing and investigating crimes against children is a high priority for HSI. We will continue to dedicate law enforcement resources to identify and bring to justice child predators who traumatize and victimize children.”
In April, the Chambers County Sheriff's Office in Texas executed a search warrant after receiving a tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children database about child pornography downloads coming from a specific house. The sheriff’s office responded to the scene alongside Department of Homeland Security agents and the Mont Belvieu Police Department.
According to a statement from the sheriff’s office at the time, authorities arrested 10 suspected illegal migrants at the Texas residence. When the officers arrived at the home, the occupants refused to open the door, requiring the deputies to force their way inside the house. Some of the suspected illegal migrants residing in the house appeared to have been of Asian descent, while others were believed to be from Guatemala.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
