This Merced man has been convicted of possessing child pornography three times

A 47-year-old Merced man with a history of possessing child pornography will spend the next four years in prison following his third such conviction during the last three years.

Lawrence Romero Ramirez Jr. pleaded no contest Oct. 2 to a single felony count of possession of obscene matter in connection with hundreds of illegal videos that had been downloaded onto multiple smartphones, according to Merced Superior Court records. The videos depicted girls and boys, some as young as 8 years old, engaged in various sexual and sex-related acts, according to reports filed by Merced Police Department investigators.

Ramirez on Thursday was sentenced to serve four years and four months in state prison by Judge Jeanne Schechter.

He was arrested Aug. 31 after a Merced County probation officer seized five cellphones from Ramirez during a probation search. The officer located at least one image that appeared to depict underage children and asked for assistance from the Merced Police Department.

Investigators eventually located more than 200 videos and images of possible child pornography, including multiple images that were dated from this year, according to police reports obtained by the Merced Sun-Star.

According to Merced Superior Court records, Ramirez also pleaded no contest in December 2015 to the similar charges in two other unrelated cases. He was sentenced to jail time and probation and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

He first was arrested in 2014 after Merced Police found more than 160 video files on Ramirez’s computer depicting children between the ages of 2 and 16, police said.

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 6:55 PM with the headline "This Merced man has been convicted of possessing child pornography three times."