‘Glee’ actor pleads not guilty to child porn charges
“Glee” star Mark Salling pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges that he downloaded and possessed child pornography on his Apple laptop computer.
Salling, who is best known for playing Noah “Puck” Puckerman, was released on a $150,000 bond after his arraignment in downtown Los Angeles, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. A trial was scheduled for July 12.
The charges stem from an L.A. police raid on the 33year-old’s home in the 9900 block of Helen Avenue in Shadow Hills in December. Detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force found thousands of images and videos depicting child pornography, police said.
Once LAPD detectives “realized the scope of the collection” on Salling’s laptop, hard drive and flash drive, his case was referred to federal investigators, authorities said.
According to the twocount federal indictment, Salling is accused of receiving at least one illicit image and a pornographic video of young girls via the Web, and being in possession of a 16-gigabyte USB flash drive that contained two videos showing girls who were younger than 12.
If convicted of the federal charges, Salling faces up to 20 years in federal prison, authorities said.
Salling also faces state charges in connection with possessing child pornography. He was released on $20,000 bail in that case.