Christopher Hernandez Meza, Child Pornography Distribution, New Mexico 2018

A Deming man has pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography in federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Christopher Hernandez Meza, 35, of Deming, N.M., pled guilty to distributing child pornography, a felony information charging him with distributing child pornography.

In entering the guilty plea, Meza admitted that on March 27, 2018, he distributed child pornography by giving another person, who unbeknownst to Meza was an undercover law enforcement agent, access to a password-protected online file folder, which contained numerous images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Meza has been in federal custody since his arrest and remains detained pending his sentencing hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.

Based on his guilty plea, Meza faces a statutory mandatory minimum penalty of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison. He also will be required to register as a sex offender after he completes his prison sentence.

The case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the FBI with assistance from the Deming Police Department and the Deming office of New Mexico State Probation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa A. Ong of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office is prosecuting the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.