Rare Criminal Charge Dropped in Rochester Child Porn Plea Deal
Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A guilty plea was entered today in a Rochester criminal case that included a rarely seen criminal offense.
Olmsted County Court records show that 34-year-old Emanuel Ernesto Zavala was charged in October of last year after Rochester police opened an investigation based on a cyber tip. It concerned 48 videos of suspected child sexual abuse material that had been uploaded to Snapchat and the Kik social media site earlier in the year.
Dozens of Suspected Sex Abuse Videos Identified
The criminal complaint against Zavala says the cyber tip also included information about 30 additional videos that were allegedly sent by Zavala to other users of those sites. The court document indicated the videos depicted children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old engaging in sexual acts with adults.
Search Warrant Leads to Admission
Investigators were able to link the social media accounts identified in the cyber tip to Zavala and his residence in southeast Rochester, resulting in the execution of a search warrant. The criminal complaint says Zavala eventually gave a statement to investigators and admitted that “he had been sending messages and videos of children engaging in sexual acts through Snapchat for more than a year.”
Rarely Seen Criminal Charge
He was originally charged with one count each of disseminating and possessing child pornography. The criminal complaint was later amended to include a felony count of engaging in electronic communication relating to or describing sexual conduct with a child and a misdemeanor count of bestiality involving an animal.
READ MORE: Bestiality Added to Charges in Rochester Child Pornography Case
Under the terms of a plea agreement, Zavala has admitted to the charge of dissemination of child pornography in exchange for the dismissal of all the other counts in the complaint. He had been scheduled to stand trial in the case next week.
Zavala is now scheduled to be sentenced next March.
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