Former GOP Hill aide pleads guilty in child porn case
A former GOP staffer and Republican National Committee aide pleaded guilty Friday to a child pornography charge and is facing 12 years or more in prison under a plea deal with prosecutors.
Ruben Verastigui, 27, entered the guilty plea from jail during a video conference hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C.
Verastigui admitted to possession of 152 videos and 50 images of child pornography and to receiving and distributing sexual depictions of children.
According to an affidavit filed in the case in February by a Department of Homeland Security investigator, Verastigui sought out images of rape of children during an online chat last year. Prosecutors said Verastigui also fantasized online about killing children while abusing them.
The investigation, focused on a ring of at least 18 people trading child pornography via a chat group on an unnamed website, appears to have zeroed in on at least one other political staffer in Washington.
Last November, a Trump Commerce Department political appointee, Adam Hageman, was arrested on charges he shared a child pornography video and commented on sexually abusing children. Hageman appears to have been set to enter a guilty plea in April, but court records do not indicate that hearing was ever held.
Mehta accepted Verastigui’s guilty plea, but deferred a decision on whether to accept the roughly 12-to-15-year sentencing range prosecutors and Verastigui agreed to. Sentencing in his case is set for Oct. 12.
Prosecutors said earlier this year that Verastigui could also face charges in Arizona over his online conduct, but the plea agreement he signed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., precludes further charges in that state.
Verastigui worked as digital director for the Joint Economic Committee in 2018 and as digital strategist for the Senate Republican Conference from 2019 to 2020, congressional payroll records show. He was also on the payroll of the RNC from 2017 to 2018, according to Federal Election Commission reports.