A former Hacienda La Puente Unified School District teacher has been sentenced to a term of four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography. Steven Pilar, 47, a resident of Las Vegas, was convicted of downloading over 400 videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, some as young as infants and toddlers, using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program known as BitTorrent during his time living in Victorville, California.
The crimes, which took place in February and April of 2020, emerged while Pilar was employed as a fifth-grade teacher, a detail that prosecutors highlighted when stating that "His actions caused direct and significant harm to the victims in this case, and his offense is aggravated by the fact that he was teaching young children at the time," according to a KTLA report. Additionally, U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes ordered Pilar to pay $115,000 in restitution following his sentencing.
Pilar has been in federal custody since August 2024 after being apprehended on state charges in April 2020, which were eventually dismissed so federal authorities could assume control of the case. The investigation involved the FBI and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joshua J. Lee of the General Crimes Section, with public information provided by Officer Ciaran McEvoy, as reported by the United States Attorney's Office.
In sentencing Pilar, this consideration was not lost on federal prosecutors who, in a memorandum cited by CBS News, argued Pilar's "perpetual re-victimization of the victims" was a significant aspect of his crime. The former teacher’s guilty plea came in December 2024, months before two counts of receiving and two counts of possessing child pornography were eventually consolidated into the one count for which he was convicted.
