A Browns Valley man pleaded guilty Tuesday to four child pornography charges in Sacramento federal court and is expected to plead guilty to another charge locally, officials said.

Richard John Matuck will be sentenced to federal prison Oct. 16 after pleading guilty to three charges of producing images of child pornography and one count of possession. He faces 33 years and eight months on the federal charges.

In addition, he will be charged locally with one felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child, said Yuba County District Attorney Patrick McGrath.

The sentence of 16 years would be served at the same time as Matuck’s federal sentence, but would also require him to register as a sex offender.

“The federal system doesn’t have a sex offender statute, so if we didn’t charge him, he wouldn’t have to register,” McGrath said.

The district attorney credited cooperation among all the agencies involved, from federal officials to the Marysville Police Department, for Matuck’s conviction. He was arrested in January.

One of the big breaks in the case came from a Marysville police officer who studied thousands of child-bondage photos from Matuck’s computer and noticed the electrical outlets in the background of some of the photos were European, McGrath said. Matuck had taken some of the photos while he was in Italy in 2004.

Matuck’s next appearance will be Aug. 24 in Yuba County Superior Court, where he is expected to plead guilty. His sentence for that abuse charge will be handed down after his federal sentence comes in October.

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