Child porn investigation catches California lawyer

A lawyer who served in the Clinton administration and more recently was an adviser to California's lieutenant governor pleaded guilty to a child porn charge in a San Diego federal court Monday.

Wade Rowland Sanders admitted to having 600 images of minors on his computer, including a video depicting "several prepubescent females engaged in sexual conduct with an adult male and performing oral sex on one another," according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt.

FBI agents raided Sanders' home last May after they suspected his home Internet service account was used to download several pictures and a video showing underage girls having sex with adult men, according to an investigator's sworn statement.

"Sanders admitted that he had downloaded child pornography using the program Limewire but that he deleted the files once he noticed that they had been downloaded," FBI Special Agent John Caruthers said.

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A search of Sanders' computer found the child porn files saved on his hard drive in two "My Documents" folders, Caruthers said.

At least one of the young girls in the photos was identified and is a "known victim," the investigator said.

When Sanders, 67, is sentenced on March 30, he could get up to 10 years in prison and be ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. The minimum sentence for the charge is five years with supervised release for his lifetime and registration as a sex offender, the prosecutor said.