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Mayor Brian A. De Peña's Chief of Staff, Jhovanny Martes-Rosario, pleaded not guilty to the charges during his arraignment on Tuesday and was released on a $1050 bond, the Essex County District Attorney's Office said.
The 48-year-old later posted bail, set at $1,050, and had to agree to stay off the internet, away from all children under the age of 18 except for his own son, and to surrender his passport, the office continued. Martes-Rosario was also fired from his position and his photo was removed from the city's website.
"Everyone who is employed by the city goes through a background check.," De Peña said in a statement released on Thursday, Feb. 9. "In their trajectory, they can change their behavior and go through what we see happening."
Police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying that images of child pornography were uploaded from an IP address associated with a Mount Auburn Street home where Martes-Rosario lives. State troopers identified the IP address as being connected to Martes-Rosario specifically.
The Cyber Crime unit carried out a search warrant at Martes-Rosario's home, conducting a forensic investigation of his technological devices and successfully finding images of child pornography. He was arrested on two counts of child pornography around 6:30 p.m. on Monday.
"Everyone, including me, repudiates what happened to our chief of staff," De Peña said. "Approximately three hours after this information was received, I made the immediate decision to not suspend, but remove this person from his position in our offices."
"He admitted to searching for and downloading child sexual abuse material from Bing.com to his personal iPad and sending it to his … email address for storage," the police report obtained by NBC10 Boston said. "Jhovanny admitted he had a curiosity for [child sexual abuse images] and that is why he stored it, further stating he has been searching for and storing it for 'years.'"
Martes-Rosario returns to court on March 27.
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