“Unauthorized Alien” Arrested for Child Porn in Philly

Jose Dany Zacarias-Jaramillo worked as a cook at Ed’s Buffalo Wings & Pizza on Lancaster Avenue in University City. And it is there that federal investigators were able to track messages and devices that contained child pornography, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court on Thursday.

Zacarias-Jaramillo, 28, has been charged with possession of child pornography, receipt of child pornography and distribution of child pornography and faces a maximum of fifty years in prison, if convicted. (See the complaint below.)

According to the complaint: Starting in November 2013, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent many tips to Homeland Security involving child pornography sent from several email addresses. Prosecutors say that all of those messages traced back to one IP address, located at the pizzeria. They were also able to determine a cell phone number associated with some of those accounts. And through a Facebook account attributed to the defendant, investigators obtained photos of the person they believed to be sending the messages.

In October 2014, investigators called the cell phone number and watched Zacarias-Jaramillo take the phone out of his pocket and pick it up on two occasions. Soon thereafter, the feds executed a search warrant on his residence near 5th and Jackson streets in South Philadelphia, confiscating various computers and devices.

According to the complaint, they found over 100,000 images of child pornography on those devices. The images and videos included “pre-pubescent boys in naked poses or performing oral sex on each other” and “an adult male having anal sex with a pre-pubescent boy.”

Prosecutors say that Zacarias-Jaramillo told investigators that he did, in fact, send child pornography using his phone. He is described in the complaint as “an unauthorized alien who entered the United States without inspection.” The complaint did not list his country of origin.