LA Child Welfare Worker Charged With Sharing Child Porn

LOS ANGELES, CA — A Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services employee pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he distributed child pornography online through his personal computer.

Carlos Enrique Castillo faces up to eight years and four months in prison if convicted of five felony counts of sending or receiving obscene matter into state for sale and one felony count of possession of over 600 images of child or youth pornography, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Castillo, 54, of Los Angeles, is accused of sending files containing child pornography through the Internet using his personal computer during a six- month period from last October through this March.

Videos and images of child pornography were allegedly discovered on his computer in June, according to Deputy District Attorney Angela Brunson.

At his arraignment Tuesday morning, he was ordered by a judge not to have any unsupervised contact with minors and not to access the Internet, according to the District Attorney's Office.

A DCFS spokesperson could not immediately be reached to provide Castillo's job title, length of employment and current status with the department.

Castillo is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Aug. 16, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to require him to stand trial.

He was arrested June 19 by the Los Angeles Police Department's Juvenile Division and released later the same day on bond, jail records show.

City News Service; Photo: Shutterstock