James Maines Jr., a former deputy district director for Texas Rep. [crscore]Joe Barton[/crscore], has admitted to forwarding “child exploitation images” to his U.S. House of Representatives email account, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Maines, 54, pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography and will be sentenced on March 16, 2016. The Justice Department said that Maines admitted to attempting to forward five child porn images from his personal email account to his House account in November 2012. He also said that he obtained those images and others from the Internet.
A forensic analysis of Maines’s computer revealed images that were downloaded as early as 2004.
A database of congressional staffer compiled by the Sunlight Foundation shows that Maines worked for Barton, a Republican, as recently as the third quarter of 2014. He was paid approximately $72,000 that year, according to Legistorm.
Maines, a former political consultant from Mesquite, also ran for Congress in Texas in 2002. He lost in the Republican primary, however. Federal Election Commission records show that Maines was on Barton’s campaign payroll through the 2012 election.