San Pedro man gets 30-year sentence in child pornography case

A South Bay man has been sentenced to 30 years behind bars for attempting — via text messages and audio calls — to convince an 11-year-old girl to produce child sexual abuse material, officials announced Wednesday.

Anthony Frank Scovotto, 58, of San Pedro, was sentenced Monday in downtown Los Angeles. He pleaded guilty in May to one count of attempted production of child pornography, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In April and May of 2017, Scovotto contacted the victim, whom he believed was 12 years old, via audio calls and text messages. To convince the victim to produce illegal material, Scovotto told the girl that he loved her and that they were “meant for each other.”

Scovotto pretended to be 18 years old, and he instructed the victim to contact him in an online chat room. While they were both chatting, Scovotto asked the victim to take off her clothes. In text messages, Scovotto asked the victim to send him sexually explicit photographs of herself, according to prosecutors.

In his plea agreement, Scovotto admitted that in 2017 he separately contacted two additional victims online, both of whom were minors. He asked both victims to send him sexually explicit photographs of themselves, which they did.

Scovotto “preyed upon vulnerable pre-teen and adolescent girls by posing as a teenager or young man and pretending to love and care for them,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court. “He betrayed their trust and manipulated them for his sexual pleasure.”

In arguing in favor of the 30-year prison sentence, prosecutors noted that Scovotto’s criminal history includes a felony conviction in 2001 in Orange County Superior Court for attempted lewd and lascivious acts upon a child younger than 14 years old.