Texas Santa Claus performer sentenced to almost 20 years for child porn

A 38-year-old Texas man who performed as Santa Claus has been sentenced to almost 20 years in prison for distributing child porn.

According to the Houston Chronicle, agents raided Reynaldo Ramirez’s home in December and discovered child pornography on several devices along with a Santa costume and wrapped gifts. At the time, he had four appearances booked as Santa.

The newspaper reports that investigators found images depicting the sexual abuse of infants, along with bondage and bestiality.

Ramirez “downloaded more than 1,000 images of child pornography ranging in ages from toddlers to pre-teens,” according to a federal law enforcement agency news release from December.

According to a previous report, Ramirez had a GoFundMe page set up in November seeking donations for an organization called Rey’s Santa Kids.

Ramirez plead guilty to distributing child pornography online in May.

He admitted to being addicted to child porn and to sexually assaulting a child.

After Ramirez’s sentence of 235 months is completed, he’ll have 20 years of probation and have to register as a sex offender.

This story was originally published August 13, 2016 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Texas Santa Claus performer sentenced to almost 20 years for child porn."