Feds arrest McAllen man as he downloaded child sexual abuse material

A McAllen man was arrested Thursday for possession of child pornography while he was in the middle of downloading the sexual abuse material, according to a criminal complaint.

Jose Julian Garcia Garza, who was born in 1988, was charged with knowingly receiving and distributing child pornography by computer.

According to the complaint, authorities received a federal search warrant for 5712 N. 24th St. in McAllen to search for and seize evidence of child sexual abuse material.

On Thursday, FBI special agents executed the warrant and identified Garcia inside the residence.

Agents entered Garcia’s room where they found his personal items, which included “a large, curved computer monitor connected to a large black custom computer tower” and “multiple pieces of child erotica and sex toys.”

Upon observation, agents saw on the monitor a paused pornographic video, an activated virtual private network, or VPN, and an active BitTorrent client.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol which allows users to distribute and download large amounts of data over the internet.

“Without manipulating the computer, the BitTorrent client indicated it was actively downloading onto the computer a torrent titled ‘ADULT dealer part 2,’” the complaint said.

The child erotica and sex toys found in Garcia’s room included a small, child-sized, life-like sex doll, according to the complaint.

Agents also found an infant-sized doll.

During an interview with authorities, Garcia stated he was into computers and technology, lived with his parents and had set up all the digital devices.

He then admitted to downloading child pornography and videos of animals.

“Garcia liked the small frame bodies of the subjects of the pornography,” the complaint said. “He downloaded gigabytes of child pornography as the videos are usually large.”

He added that he sometimes forgets to run his VPN when he restarts his computer and asked if that was the reason he was caught.

Garcia then gave consent to have his computer and cellphone searched.

Agents opened the torrent that was at 90% completion to view one of the video files that had been downloaded which depicted child sex abuse, according to the complaint.

Garcia is scheduled to make a first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia S. Medrano in McAllen federal court Friday afternoon.

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