Lakewood Man Pleads Guilty to Child Pornography Charges

One of three Lakewood men pleaded guilty in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday.

Neal Rigo, 46, faces 273 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 34 counts of illegal use of a minor in a nudity-oriented material or performance.

He also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing criminal tools.

Maria Russo, spokeswoman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said that Rigo made child pornography files available for sharing over the Internet.

“Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children investigators found one child pornography video and 428 child pornography photos between the two computers (found at his Lakewood home),” she said.

Rigo is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 28 by Judge Nancy Margaret Russo. 

Based on the offenses, he will be classified as a Tier II sex offender and will be required to register his address and place of employment with the county sheriff's office where he resides every 180 days for the next 25 years. 

Two other Lakewood men — Christopher Willard, 33, and Michael Liggett, 54 — who were also indicted as part of a 10-month investigation into child pornography, have already been arraigned.

Their trials are set to begin later this month.

All three men are all believed to have possessed and traded child pornography sometime between December 2010 through October 2011, according to Russo.

They were indicted in November as part of Operation Fall Clean Sweep, a 10-month investigation into child pornography by the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The investigation resulted in For the Fall Clean Sweep operation — resulting in dozens of indictments around Northeast Ohio — the detectives identified IP addresses being used to trade and download child pornography pictures and videos.

From December 2010 through October 2011, 46 law enforcement officers from 16 executed 36 search warrants on homes in 17 communities throughout Cuyahoga County.

Officers seized 1,501 items such as computers, CDs, DVDs, cell phones, flash drives, floppy disks, digital cameras, video gaming systems, VHS tapes, and weapons. Eighty-nine additional cases have been referred to 59 law enforcement agencies outside of Cuyahoga County, including one in Illinois.