A San Diego State University police officer whose arrest was announced this week is suspected of downloading multiple videos depicting child sexual abuse of girls as young as 6 years old, according to a federal complaint.
Sgt. Paul Aurelio McClain was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of possessing child pornography after an investigator determined that at least seven videos that showed underage girls being raped and sexually assaulted had been downloaded to his personal computer at his Menifee home, according to court records.
Aurelio is being held in lieu of bond and set to be arraigned April 1 in Riverside, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The deputy federal public defender assigned to McClain’s case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The criminal complaint filed Friday came after a cyber-crime unit with Homeland Security Investigations began tracking downloads made by a specific user on an anonymous file-sharing website between July 27 and Feb. 3, the court document reads.
The complaint states that the investigator heading up the case used a special law enforcement computer to trace the downloads to a specific IP address at McClain’s home.
A search warrant was served at the home last week, and inside McClain’s upstairs office, investigators reported finding a hard drive containing child sexual abuse materials, including videos of pre-pubescent children, according to the complaint. Two other hard drives allegedly contained deleted files with names that suggested they contained similar material, officials said.
McClain’s wife cooperated with investigators and told HSI she did not have access to the devices in her husband’s office and that their three children use their own personal devices, the complaint reads. She added that her husband had a degree in computer programming.
SDSU Police Chief Gregory Murphy informed the campus community in an email Tuesday that an unnamed officer had been arrested off campus in the case and that the university had initiated actions to fire the sergeant.
University officials cited employee privacy laws when asked for the officer’s name, rank and tenure at the department and referred all further questions about the investigation to HSI, an agency under U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
An Instagram post by an SDSU student group advertising McClain as a guest speaker last month said the sergeant was a member of the K9 team. The fall 2024 edition of SDSU Magazine includes a photo of McClain with his police canine partner.
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