A San Francisco man has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced yesterday. Cristian Eduardo Mattus Piccardo, 52, will also be subject to a decade of supervised release after his incarceration and is mandated to register as a sex offender.
In a hearing presided over by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, Mattus received his sentence and the order to pay restitution to victims, which includes the minor daughter of a family friend. Arrested by a federal grand jury in July 2023, Mattus was indicted again in December by a superseding indictment, according to the Justice Department's official announcement.
Mattus, who had over 4,000 videos and 2,000 images of child sexual abuse material, admitted to actively searching for and downloading files depicting extremely young children. His collection included disturbing content involving infants and toddlers, some as young as two years old. He kept these images and shared over 2,000 files with others on the internet using peer-to-peer file-sharing software.
The case resulted from an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, with Special Agent in Charge Tatum King leading the efforts. George Hageman served as the Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case, with the support of Helen Yee. Mattus will begin serving his sentence on May 12.
