{"id":397244,"date":"2026-07-14T00:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397244\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:06:08","slug":"former-california-womens-prison-sergeant-gets-15-years-for-possession-of-child-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397244\/","title":{"rendered":"Former California women\u2019s prison sergeant gets 15 years for possession of child porn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A former corrections sergeant at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Chowchilla has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for receiving and distributing child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n<p>40-year-old Ralph Contreras Jr. was sentenced on Monday by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston.<\/p>\n<p>Court documents say Contreras received and distributed child sexual abuse material through social media apps between Sept. 29, 2024, and Jan. 2, 2025. <\/p>\n<p>He specifically sought out material depicting prepubescent minors. <\/p>\n<p>Contreras was working as a corrections sergeant at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>Contreras was <a href=\"https:\/\/kmph.com\/news\/local\/department-of-corrections-sergeant-arrested-with-child-porn-in-chowchilla\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arrested in January 2025<\/a> and pleaded guilty on April 13, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Homeland Security Investigations, the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and the Madera County Sheriff\u2019s Office investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Barton prosecuted it.<\/p>\n<p>The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice initiative aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse. More information is available at www.usdoj.gov\/psc, including internet-safety education resources under the \u201cresources\u201d tab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A former corrections sergeant at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Chowchilla has been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-397244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}