A Templeton man is facing time in prison and life registration as a sex offender after a jury found him guilty of possessing hundreds of images of child pornography.
Jeffrey Paul Gentile, 35, was convicted this week of possession of child pornography. The jury also found true that he possessed at least 600 images and at least 10 of them depicted children under the age of 12.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office says more than 40 videos, the equivalent of 2,100 images of child pornography, were found on Gentile's computer when it was seized as part of an investigation in 2015.
The investigation kicked off when an Arroyo Grande Police Department detective who was working as a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce received evidence that a particular computer was sharing child pornography with other computers over the internet. The computer's IP address was traced to Gentile's home in Templeton.
Gentile is scheduled to be sentenced on September 14, 2022. He faces a maximum term of five years in state prison and will have to register as a sex offender.
