TUCSON — Josue Eduardo Cota, 33, of Douglas, was sentenced Wednesday to 60 years in federal prison for producing sexually explicit videos of multiple children and distributing them online.
U.S. Homeland Security investigators discovered videos showing sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children in February 2017, while reviewing evidence from a child exploitation case in Canada, said a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Arizona District.
Agents tracked the distribution of the videos to a residence in Douglas, and determined that Cota, a former corrections officer who had been employed in the border city, was responsible for those crimes.
Cota pleaded guilty Nov. 30, 2017 to eight counts of production of child pornography.
Cota’s sentence was aggravated because he sexually abused very young children. He also repeatedly engaged in sexual exploitation of minors, and shared the videos he made of this criminal activity with others through distribution of the videos.
Federal prison sentences are served at 85 percent. Cota should be eligible for parole after serving 51 years in the Bureau of Prisons. Cota’s term will be followed by lifetime supervised release, with stringent sex offender conditions, including that he register as a sex offender, if he is released from prison.