Texas inmate facing local rape, child porn charges

A former Green Forest resident who is now serving time in a Texas prison after being convicted of promoting child pornography was scheduled to be arraigned Monday, July 18, in Carroll County Circuit Court on multiple charges including rape involving an alleged child victim.

Pedro Saldivar

Pedro Aguirre Saldivar, 49, was sentenced in September 2021 to 15 years in prison after being convicted on two counts of promotion of child pornography, Texas prison records show. He was transferred to the Carroll County Detention Center on July 13 to face two counts of rape, three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of engaging children in sexually explicit conduct for use in a visual or print medium.

The local charges stem from a Green Forest Police Department investigation that began in August 2020. In a probable-cause affidavit, detective Allen Phillips writes that four female relatives of Saldivar were interviewed by a forensic interviewer from Grandma’s House Children’s Advocacy Center in Harrison.

Phillips writes that the girls’ mother was contacted by a Green Forest officer and told that Saldivar had been arrested on child pornography charges in Texas and that one of her daughters might have been a victim of sexual assault.

An undercover police officer in Texas communicated with Saldivar via social media, the affidavit says, and received multiple images of child pornography. Saldivar identified the child in the images as an 8-year-old female relative and said that he had been sexually active with the girl, the affidavit says. Saldivar then arranged to bring the girl and meet the undercover officer for a sexual encounter, for which the officer was to pay Saldivar $2,500, according to the affidavit.

Texas investigators were able to determine Saldivar’s location and arrested him before the arranged encounter was scheduled to occur, the affidavit says.

During an interview with investigators, Saldivar said the images he shared with the undercover officer were of a 9-year-old female relative living in Green Forest. He described having sexual contact with the girl, the affidavit says.

During their interviews, three of Saldivar’s female relatives described him touching them in some fashion and one said Saldivar had taken explicit photos of her, according to the affidavit.

A bench warrant for Saldivar’s arrest was issued Aug. 27, 2020.