Top Senate Staffer Charged With Child Porn

A high-level aide and advisor to a veteran California senator has been charged with two felonies for receiving and distributing child pornography from his personal laptop computer.

The congressional aide (Jeff Rosato) was a key member of Senator Barbara Boxer’s staff and a top advisor on the Environmental and Public Works Committee that she chairs. Boxer, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after serving a decade in the U.S. House. 

Rosato, 32, began working for Boxer in 2005 as a legislative assistant and last year became a senior policy advisor for the Senate environmental committee. A federal affidavit says Rosato exchanged hundreds of pornographic images and movies of children with an undercover detective posing as a 13-year-old boy.

Federal authorities say Rosato’s personal laptop, found in the bedroom of his Virginia apartment, had about 200 child porn images and videos. He has been charged with one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography. 

Through a spokesperson Boxer immediately fired the valued aide from his congressional post, which paid him $101,020 last year. Before joining Boxer’s staff, the disgraced aide worked for Bob Torricelli, a Democrat senator from New Jersey.