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Pires sentenced to seven years for possession of child pornography
Pires
George Pires was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for possession of child pornography. - photo by Contributed to the Courier

The Ceres man, who was arrested in early 2013 for having over 100,000 images of child pornography in his possession, was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison.

The sentencing of George Pires, 56, of Ceres, was announced Monday by U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner.

The Service Road man was arrested in February 2013 by agents from the Sacramento division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department detectives and charged with possession of and manufacturing child pornography.

An investigation into Pires started in October 2012 when someone reported him to the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department. Deputies obtained a search warrant to enter his home in the 1700 block of E. Service Road and seized photographs and several computers. Computer forensic analysis located more than 100,000 images of child pornography on the computers.

Because of the large quantity of child pornography evidence found, Sheriff's detectives contacted the FBI for assistance. A joint investigation with the FBI was conducted and the FBI arrested Pires for federal charges of alleged possession and manufacture of child pornography.

Some of the child pornography was in photo form stored in binders in the house and others in video form. Authorities would not answer questions about whether Pires was specifically involved in the images or videos.

In April 2012, Ceres police arrested Pires at Service/Central on charges of possession of a controlled substance, transporting a controlled substance for sales and driving on a suspended license.
He lived alone and was self employed.