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November 9, 2023, News Release
Louisa – Today, Louisa County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire announced that Walter Blanco-Maldanado, 32, El Salvador, is going back to prison for six years and month for a new conviction in Federal Court for entering the United States illegally which resulted in a probation violation in Louisa County from a previous sex offender conviction. Blanco-Maldanado was convicted in the Louisa Circuit Court on January 4, 2016, for five counts of distribution of child pornography (also known as Child Sexual Abuse Material “CSAM”) over the Internet and was sentenced to five years in prison. After serving his sentence, he was deported from the United States back to his home country of El Salvador.
At today’s probation hearing, the Defendant took the stand and admitted to being apprehended on the Rio Grande River in Texas on November 3, 2021. He stated that a friend in El Salvador gave him the name of another person who he paid $5,000 to transport him to the Rio Grande from El Salvador. He testified that it took him about 30 days of travel with a group and he did not recall the people involved. He said he was apprehended along with eight others crossing the border illegally. He admitted he was sentenced to three years and one month incarceration for this charge in Federal Court. Judge Timothy K. Sanner sentenced him to an additional three years in prison for violating the terms of his 2016 CSAM convictions in Louisa for a total of six years and one month.
Speaking, on the conviction McGuire said “this is not El Paso, this is Louisa, County almost 2,000 miles from the border and this sex offender still impacted our community. We argued that his illegal entry into the United States prevented us from knowing the location of a sex offender which put children in the United States at risk. Probation is important to ensure sex offenders do not re-offend and entering the United States illegally prevents the Court ordered supervision. We must get restore operational control of the American border so we know who is entering this country.”
Blanco-Maldanado will still have the remaining 17 years of a suspended sentence over his head when he is deported back to El Salvador after serving his current sentence. This is the second person from El Salvador convicted in Louisa County in the past three weeks for offenses associated with exploiting children. On October 16, 2023, Rodolfo Melgar was convicted of producing CSAM for unlawful filming of a minor using a public restroom in Louisa.
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