Kansas sex offender pleads guilty to porn charges involving 12-year-old girl
A Kansas man who was already a registered sex offender admitted Thursday to producing and distributing child pornography.
U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister’s Office said Daniel Eric Merida, 35, of El Dorado pleaded guilty to federal charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, transporting child pornography, sending obscene material to a minor child and two counts of possessing child pornography. He is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 18.
According to court records, Merida admitted to contacting a 12-year-old girl using social media starting in 2012 and spent the next six years “cultivating an online sexual relationship with her.” During that time, he sent the girl obscene material of himself and sexually explicit images of children. He also “persuaded and enticed” the girl to take explicit photos of herself, records say.
The girl lives in another state, Merida’s plea agreement says. She ended the relationship in March 2017 but remained in intermittent contact with Merida afterward.
Authorities found Merida with child pornography during a March 2018 search, McAllister said in a news release. After his arrest last November, authorities conducted a second search and discovered that Merida had used an online storage provider called Dropbox to keep child pornography. Investigators also found child porn on Merida’s phone, the release and court records say.
All of Merida’s crimes carry a presumptive prison sentence, including 25 to 50 years of incarceration for producing child porn and up to 20 years for distributing and possessing it.
Merida was convicted in 2014 of a child sex crime in a Colorado case, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s searchable offender database.
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 1:12 PM.
