It's been more than two years since 49-year-old Ignacio Ruiz was arrested for possession of child sex abuse material.
Prosecutors and the defense reached a plea agreement after Ruiz pleaded no contest to possession of more than 600 images.
On Thursday morning, a Tulare County judge read his sentence.
"Count 1, he is ordered to serve 365 days in the custody of the Tulare County Sheriff, with credit for two days in custody awaiting sentencing," said Judge Tripp.
Ruiz, who spent 20 years with the Visalia Fire Department and rose to the rank of engineer, will spend the next year in county jail.
He was also sentenced to two years of probation and must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
"If you compare this to going to federal court and having charges there, you're looking at a 15-year minimum sentence, so he was very fortunate to be charged in the state courts and not the federal courts," explains Action News Legal Analyst Tony Capozzi.
Ruiz was arrested in May 2024 as a result of a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was among the agencies involved in the investigation, along with Visalia Police and the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.
"There's a lot of sick and twisted people out there that like this type of material, and you have to have stopgaps in its place, and in this case, we have the ICAT team, and they're there to do that job," emphasized Tony Botti, with the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.
Botti continues, "As secretive as the suspect thinks they are, they're always leaving a digital footprint. And there are resources out there, like NCMEC, who are monitoring this type of behavior, who relay those tips to us at the Sheriff's Office, and it's going to get looked into, and 99.9% of the time, it's gonna result in us catching you."
To report a crime, people are encouraged to contact their local agencies or NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
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