{"id":400736,"date":"2026-07-16T13:35:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400736\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:35:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:35:59","slug":"chowchilla-sergeant-sentenced-to-15-years-for-abuse-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400736\/","title":{"rendered":"Chowchilla sergeant sentenced to 15 years for abuse images"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A correctional sergeant at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Chowchilla was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to trading pictures and videos of children being sexually assaulted, according to a news release.<\/p>\n<p>Ralph Contreras Jr., 40, was no longer employed by the Chowchilla facility when he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kirk E. Sherriff for the receipt and distribution of child sexual abuse material, which is sometimes called child pornography, according to the release.<\/p>\n<p>Contreras was <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/news\/local\/crime\/article308568560.html\">indicted about a month ago<\/a> by a federal jury. His attorney, Eric Schweitzer, said Contreras had seen violence inside the prison during his more than a dozen years working there and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s apparently an addiction that went down a slippery slope (from) an addiction to pornography to an addiction to this deviant behavior,\u201d Schweitzer said.<\/p>\n<p>Schweitzer said Contreras had a \u201cspotless\u201d career as a correctional officer, and the judge took that into account in not sentencing Contreras to the maximum of 20 years. Contreras showed \u201ctons and tons of remorse,\u201d Schweitzer said.<\/p>\n<p>The complaint filed in California\u2019s Eastern District Court says Contreras admitted to investigators he liked to watch pornography depicting girls around the age of 14. Court documents include several users of the Kik smartphone app, including Contreras, asking each other for videos and images of child sexual assault material.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said he sought images of prepubescent minors between Sept. 29, 2024, and Jan. 2, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Among the items discovered by investigators, were rape scenes that depicted adult men assaulting girls as young as 6 or 8, according to court records.<\/p>\n<p>        Related Stories from  Fresno Bee<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/218116650\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784208959_144_Thaddeus Miller smaller.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Profile Image of Thaddeus Miller\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <a class=\"author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/profile\/218116650\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thaddeus Miller<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    Merced Sun-Star<\/p>\n<p>            Reporter Thaddeus Miller has covered cities in the central San Joaquin Valley since 2010, writing about everything from breaking news to government and police accountability. A native of Fresno, he joined The Fresno Bee in 2019 after time in Merced and Los Banos.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A correctional sergeant at the Central California Women\u2019s Facility in Chowchilla was sentenced to 15 years in prison&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-400736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400736","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=400736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}