Valley choir teacher sentenced after UTRGV student gives him USB with child porn

McALLEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A local choir teacher has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison for receiving pornographic images of children from a Los Fresnos man, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced.

Orlando Diaz-Ramirez, a 33-year-old Mexican citizen, pleaded guilty Sept. 8, 2023, after admitting he received 300 videos of child pornography from Israel Flores, 22.

Diaz has been ordered to serve 97 months in federal prison for these crimes, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

At the time of the offense, Diaz was employed as a choir teacher at a local middle school. An investigation into his devices revealed he obtained eight gigabytes of child pornography on his Dropbox account.

In October 2020, authorities discovered that a person was uploading child porn to a Dropbox account. They linked the associated IP address to a residence in Donna that belonged to Diaz.

At 6 a.m. on April 29, 2021, authorities executed a federal search warrant at Diaz' residence. When they arrived, Diaz admitted to downloading child porn through Kik and uploading it to his Dropbox account. He told authorities he "assumed" the children's age range was between 13 and 17, a criminal complaint stated.

He also told authorities he received a USB drive from Flores, containing more child porn.

In July 2021, Flores was arrested. Authorities confronted him at his residence in Los Fresnos where he admitted to providing the USB to Diaz.

As previously reported by ValleyCentral, Flores was a UTRGV student at the time of his arrest.

Flores admitted to using a Kik account to access accounts in Mega, a cloud-based storage and file hosting service, to obtain the child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office release stated. The Los Fresnos man then downloaded the material onto the USB drive and distributed it to Diaz.

A review of the USB drive revealed 300 videos of child pornography including prepubescent minors under the age of 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults. A criminal complaint revealed some of the material depicted children as young as 1 year old engaging in sexual acts with adults.

“With today’s sentencing, HSI has removed a dangerous child predator from the community,” said Mark Lippa, HSI RGV Deputy Special Agent in Charge. “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."

Both Diaz and Flores have been ordered to serve 97 months in prison and must also pay $24,000 and $21,000, respectively, to known victims.

Both men will also be ordered to register as sex offenders and must serve five years on supervised release, during which time they will have to comply with numerous requirements designed to restrict his access to children and the internet.

Due to his non U.S. citizen status, Diaz is expected to be deported following his sentence.

Diaz and Flores will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.