CLAREMONT — A 44-year-old Claremont man has been charged with possession of child pornography after police say they found sexually explicit videos and images of young children saved on his cellphone, according to an affidavit.
Raphael Santana pleaded not guilty to one felony count of possession of child sexual abuse images during an arraignment Friday. Superior Court Judge Brian Tucker ordered him released on personal recognizance with the conditions that he cannot use the internet, must have electronic monitoring and can’t have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16, according to prosecutors.
The charge stems from a two-month investigation that started when a woman who knew Santana came to the police department with explicit photos of children that she’d taken from Santana’s phone, according to an affidavit written by Claremont Police Detective Joshua Peavey.
When police questioned Santana, he acknowledged having some sexually explicit photos of children and having searched the internet for child pornography, but said he was just “curious” and planned to delete the images, the affidavit said.
Police looked through his phone and found over 15,000 saved images and videos, the majority of which depicted children under the age of 16, the affidavit said. Prosecutors declined to say how many of the images were sexually explicit.
Investigators also said data from his phone indicated that he had visited explicit websites featuring children and deleted his search history after visiting each site, according to police.