A Los Angeles deputy city attorney has been arrested on child porn charges, the City Attorney's Office said.
Christopher Garcia faces charges including possessing child porn and sending or bringing obscene matter into the state for sale, according to the felony complaint for an arrest warrant.
"When our office became aware of these allegations ten months ago, Mr. Garcia was immediately placed on administrative leave, where he remains today," said City Attorney spokesman Rob Wilcox. "We cannot comment further on this ongoing criminal matter."
He was arrested Thursday by the Los Angeles Police Department's Juvenile Division, online jail booking records show. He was freed on bail said Jane Guccione, a Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman.
Neighbors told NBC4 they remember a raid at Garcia's San Pedro home, but didn't know what it was for. Some were shocked to find out about the allegations.
"I would never have thought it was anything to do with children at all because, you know, there's a lot of children in this neighborhood, running around constantly," said neighbor Jennifer Garcia, who is not related to the deputy city attorney.
Garcia, a Harvard Law School graduate, has a current active status to practice law in California, according to his California Bar Association web profile.
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In 2010, he ran for a Los Angeles Superior Court judgeship, according to the Metropolitan News-Enterprise. In his profile, he said he never intended to be a lawyer.
"He really wanted to be a musician," according to the profile. "He played the guitar in a band, and after failing the bar exam on his first try, thought maybe he wasn’t cut out for the profession after all."
Music wasn’t lucrative, so he joined the family business, R.G. Construction Co. in San Pedro, where he handled bidding and contract negotiations and obtained building permits and inspections as a construction supervisor, the newspaper said.
He joined the LA City Attorney's Office in 1999, the newspaper said.
