A former Southern California elementary school teacher has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for possessing child sex abuse material.
Steven Pilar, 47, of Las Vegas, previously worked as a fifth-grade teacher at Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in San Gabriel Valley, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Authorities say that between February and April 2020, while living in Victorville, Pilar used BitTorrent, a file-sharing program, to download and store explicit videos and images involving children. Prosecutors revealed that he obtained approximately 444 files containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and knowingly kept them before eventually deleting them.
Pilar was initially arrested in April 2020 on state charges, but the case was later transferred to federal prosecutors. In August 2024, he was charged with two counts of receiving and two counts of possessing child pornography. He later pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of possession.
“His actions caused direct and significant harm to the victims in this case,” prosecutors stated in court filings. “His offense is further aggravated by the fact that he was teaching young children at the time.”
