A man living on the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.
Leonardo Rubio, 23, pleaded guilty Friday, according to a press release. He also admitted to sexually assaulting a relative, who is a minor, and taking pictures of himself engaged in sexual contact with his wife’s relative, who is a minor, when he was about 16 years old.
There is no parole in the federal system and the sentence will be followed by a life term of court-ordered supervision.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks. The judge also ordered that Rubio pay $69,000 to the 23 victims seeking restitution.
Rubio’s crimes were discovered after Naval Crime Investigate Service special agents received a tip from Dropbox, which indicated Rubio uploaded child pornography to its cloud service.
From there, a forensic examination of Rubio’s devices discovered 26,114 images and 1,505 videos containing child pornography involving prepubescent male and female victims ranging in age from 3 months to 14 years old.
Evidence showed that for about five years beginning in at least 2016 through 2021, Rubio “sought, received, produced, and distributed images, videos, and files containing child pornography using multiple cell phones, data storage devices, the Kik social media messaging application, and Dropbox online cloud storage,” according to the press release.
The Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort Office of Communication was unable to be reached for immediate comment to confirm if Rubio was in the Marine Corps.
However, housing on the Marine Corps Air Station is only available for active-duty service members and their families, Department of Defense civilians and military retirees.
The case was brought up as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.
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