Former “Glee” actor Mark Salling has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges.
Salling pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one felony count of possession of child pornography involving a prepubescent minor, court records show.
He could face four to seven years in prison, with 20 years supervised release.
According to the court records, more than 50,000 images and videos of child pornography and child erotica were found on defendant’s laptop, and another approximately 4,000 images and 160 videos of child pornography were found on defendant’s thumb drive. These files were “highly organized” by file name and folder structure, and the “defendant knew that the images of child pornography that he knowingly downloaded from the internet depicted real minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” prosecutors said.
The actor has agreed to pay $50,000 restitution to each of the victims. He must also register as a sex offender, participate in a psychological counseling or psychiatric treatment, and will not be allowed to have “verbal, written, telephonic, or electronic communication with any person under the age of 18, except a) in the presence of the parent or legal guardian of said minor and b) on the condition that defendant notifies said parent or legal guardian of defendant’s conviction.”
He cannot stay within 100 feet of school yards, parks, public swimming pools, playgrounds, youth centers, video arcade facilities or other places primarily used by people under the age of 18. He is also not allowed to reside within direct view of them.
A maximum sentence for the violation can involve 20 years imprisonment, a lifetime period of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the “gross gain or gross loss resulting from the offense.”
The documents says that Salling “attempted to conceal his activity by using software that masked his IP address. However, on at least two occasions in 2015, defendant showed his child pornography to an adult woman in the context of their sexual relationship. This was ultimately reported to law enforcement.”
In December 2015, Salling was arrested for felony possession of child pornography, and was booked in downtown Los Angeles and released on $20,000 bail.
Last summer, he pleaded not guilty to federal charges he was harboring child pornography. The actor had entered the plea against two counts of receiving and possessing pornographic images of minors.
The actor starred as Noah “Puck” Puckerman on the Fox musical for six seasons. In addition to appearing in “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie,” Salling toplined the indie “Rocky Road” and has a part in Adi Shankar’s forthcoming“Gods and Secrets.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.