Illegal immigrant living in Hagerstown is held on $100K bond in child-porn case

Posted: Wednesday, June 24, 2015 5:48 pm | Updated: 5:59 pm, Wed Jun 24, 2015.

An illegal immigrant charged with distribution and possession of child pornography told a district court commissioner this week to "just deport me" following his arrest, according to information revealed during his bond-review hearing Wednesday in Washington County Circuit Court.
Cristian Alexander Magana, 19, of Beachley Drive, Hagerstown, is charged with six counts of promoting or distributing child pornography and 15 counts of possession of child pornography, court records said.

District Judge Terry Myers kept his bond at $100,000 at 10 percent, meaning he can post bail with $10,000.

"The defendant is an illegal alien from El Salvador," Assistant State's Attorney Arthur Rozes told the judge.

He said Magana was able to repeat — in English — "Just deport me" when he was arraigned before the commissioner.

Rozes asked that Magana be held on a fully secured $100,000 bond, "pending action by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)."

Assistant Public Defender Sean Mukherjee asked Myers to set "an extremely reasonable bond" for Magana, telling the judge that the defendant has lived in Hagerstown for about a year with an aunt who depends on his financial support.

Mukherjee told the judge that Magana's alleged downloading of child pornography was mechanically not much different than illegally downloading music from a file-sharing service.

There was no accusation that Magana had physical contact with a child or had a hand in producing the pornography, he said.

"Are you really comparing this to downloading music?" Myers asked at one point. "The legislature views this a little more seriously."

The maximum penalty for distribution of child pornography is 10 years, Myers told Magana through an interpreter.

On Tuesday, March 10, a Maryland state trooper downloaded six files from an Internet address linked to Magana using a file-sharing service, according to the application for statement of charges.

Those files contained videos depicting prepubescent girls and a boy engaged in sexual acts with adults males, the charging documents said.

The file-sharing service, Ares, was the same one used by another Hagerstown man recently accused of possession of child pornography in an apparently unrelated case.

John David Vogelsang was charged in May with 26 counts of promoting and distributing child pornography and possession of child pornography, according to court records.

In May, a search warrant was obtained for Magana's residence, and a laptop computer was seized from his room for a forensic examination, the documents said.

On June 10, police found another nine videos of child pornography on the computer, documents said.

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