A 50-year-old South Jersey man, who was found with videos showing the violent sexual abuse of infants and arrested in a statewide child pornography sweep, was sentenced to six years in prison, officials said Friday.

John Wilms was also required to register as a sex offender and serve three years of parole ineligibility, according to the state Attorney General’s Office. The Mount Holly man, who pleaded guilty in August to a child pornography distribution charge, was sentenced Wednesday in Burlington County Superior Court.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Philip E. Haines found aggravating factors of the crime, including that the digital videos Wilms had involved “extremely young victims, including infants, being subjected to extremely violent abuse,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

“Wilms had more than a hundred videos of abuse, cruelty, and sexual assaults against innocent children, including infants,” State Police Superintendent Colonel Patrick Callahan said. “The law enforcement community is placing these offenders on notice that we are actively working together to uncover their repulsive deeds and bring them to justice.”

Wilms, a delivery truck driver, was arrested as part of “Operation Safeguard,” a 2016 child pornography sweep carried out by the State Police, Division of Criminal Justice and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.

Detectives and agents monitored file-sharing programs often used by people who traffic in images of child sex abuse to hunt for digital “fingerprints” of offenders along with online search terms, according to officials.

An agent with HSI previously downloaded more than 25 images of child sexual abuse from a shared folder at an internet protocol addressed traced to Wilms, officials said. Investigators arrested Wilms Feb. 25, 2016 and searched his home, leading them to find more than 180 child pornography files on his computers.

"This case starkly illustrates why child pornography falls under New Jersey’s child endangerment statute,” state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. “By creating a market for these violent images of abuse, offenders like Wilms drive the further abuse and victimization of children.”

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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