A former staffer for a Republican congressman from Texas pleaded guilty Wednesday to receiving child pornography, one year after his arrest for attempting to forward explicit images of minors to his House of Representatives-associated work email account.

The case against James "Dub" Maines, formerly Rep. Joe Barton's deputy district director, began in November 2012 when he attempted to send child pornography from an AOL account to his work email.

AOL blocked the email and alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to court documents. A search warrant was served on AOL, and three FBI agents paid Maines a visit in September 2013.

"The defendant initially denied being sexually attracted to children, but later, when asked again whether he was sexually attracted to children, the defendant replied, 'I'm not going to tell you that,'" an October court filing from federal prosecutors says.



A search of Maines' computer revealed 17 images involving children, one described as "a 6-10 year-old girl," performing various sex acts.

In a court filing Wednesday, Maines acknowledged he "knowingly had" the 17 images on his computer. "Some of the images," he admits, "depict sadistic and/or violent content."

Maines, who was arrested in December 2014 and appears to have parted ways with Barton at about that time, pleaded guilty to a single count of receiving child pornography, which carries between five and 20 years in prison. He will be sentenced March 16.

Warren St. John, Maines' attorney, did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.

In a brief statement, Barton said “I and my office have cooperated with law enforcement officials investigating the matter. Mr. Maines is no longer a member of my staff.”



Barton previously has advocated a tough approach toward child porn.

"Child pornography is apparently a multibillion, my staff analysis says, $20 billion-a-year business," the congressman said at a 2006 hearing. "And in spite of all the rhetoric, we're basically ... I won't say we're doing nothing, that's not fair to our law enforcement agencies and all the groups here that are trying to help. But we're doing very little to counteract it and everybody agrees that it's growing."

Spokespeople for the Dallas and Washington field offices of the FBI declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the Dallas U.S. attorney's office, which prosecuted the case. The Justice Department said in a press release Maines downloaded child pornography as early as 2004.



The Maines prosecution has attracted significantly less media attention than followed the arrest of Ryan Loskarn, then chief of staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., in December 2013 on child porn charges. Loskarn killed himself in 2014.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr says he doesn't know why the case flew under reporters' radar.

"The case has been publicly available since his arrest and initial appearance," Carr says. "We chose to wait until a conviction to issue a press release."