Former professor pleads guilty to possessing child porn

ATLANTA (AP) — A former professor and dean at Georgia State University has pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, federal prosecutors said.

Daniel Deocampo, 48, had videos and images of children as young as 5 years old engaging in sexually explicit conduct, prosecutors said in a news release.

“Deocampo was caught brazenly using the university network to exploit children,” Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said in the release. “It is disturbing when we learn that an educator engages in this type of disgusting behavior. Possessing child pornography victimizes and abuses the children in the images each time they are disseminated.”

Georgia State's cyber security department alerted the FBI in November 2020 that an employee was using the university network to access websites that appeared to contain child pornography, prosecutors said. The FBI and Georgia State cyber security staff determined that Deocampo had visited multiple websites containing child pornography from campus in November and December 2020.

After learning from university staff that Deocampo often accessed the university network from home, the FBI found that he also accessed child pornography websites from home in late December and early January.

Agents executed search warrants at his house and his university office and lab space on Jan. 6 and recovered a laptop belonging to Deocampo that had more than 4,000 child pornography files, including about 190 videos.

Deocampo pleaded guilty on Wednesday and is set to be sentenced Feb. 23.