Ontario lawyer sentenced to 10 years for child pornography
LOS ANGELES - A lawyer who formerly had a legal practice in Ontario was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison for receiving sexually explicit images and videos from a minor over Snapchat.
Sagi Schwartzberg, 39, of Fontana, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr., who also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine and ordered him to serve a 20-year period of supervised release upon the completion of his prison term, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Schwartzberg, whose California law license was suspended, pleaded guilty in August to one count of receipt of child pornography.
From 2019 to January 2021, Schwartzberg used Snapchat to communicate with a minor victim, and received several sexually explicit images and videos of the victim.
SUGGESTED:
- Suspect arrested in connection with Sacramento mass shooting, police say
- Train car burglaries on the rise in Fullerton: police
In November 2020, law enforcement received a tip from Kik, another instant messaging application, that one of its users had shared suspected child pornography with another Kik user or group of users.
The tip indicated that a person later identified as Schwartzberg had uploaded suspected child pornography to Kik from two locations — later determined to be his residence and his law office.
Get your top stories delivered daily! Sign up for FOX 11’s Fast 5 newsletter. And, get breaking news alerts in the FOX 11 News app. Download for iOS or Android.
During a search, Fontana Police officers seized Schwartzberg's mobile phone, which had a hidden vault containing file folders, labeled with girls' names, one of which contained sexually explicit images and videos of a girl who was at the time 14 and 15 years old when the images were created.
In addition, law enforcement located four additional individuals in California, Minnesota and Iowa, who provided information that Schwartzberg paid for sexually explicit photos and videos of them via Snapchat and Kik. These victims were minors at the time Schwartzberg contacted them.
Tune in to FOX 11 Los Angeles for the latest Southern California news.