SAN JOSE — A city resident who worked at the Campbell Community Center has been charged with possessing child pornography after he admitted to authorities he’d been viewing it for years.
Brian Risso, 61, was charged with a single count of child pornography possession, and remains in jail pending the outcome of a detention hearing Tuesday afternoon. The charge carries a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.
The FBI served a search warrant at Risso’s San Jose home on Feb. 15, and he told agents he wasn’t surprised when they said they were conducting a child exploitation investigation, according to the criminal complaint. He admitted to having some “pretty bad (expletive) on his computer,” and a search yielded videos of children being raped and sexually abused.
Risso said he had “no excuses” and admitted to seeing kids every day at his job. He said sometimes seeing children at work made him question why he was viewing child sexual abuse material.
“That’s the paradox. That’s the thing, you know, when I look at this and I go, what the hell am I doing? And ‘cause then, sometimes I think, ‘God you know, you’re around kids’ and you, you know, I feel horrible,” Risso allegedly told FBI agents.
All told, more than 500 pictures and videos depicting child pornography were found on Risso’s computer, prosecutors say. They believe he used a peer to peer sharing network to download the files.
Risso made his first court appearance last week but did not enter a plea, court records show. He is due to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Source: www.mercurynews.com