Warrant issued after man fails to show for trial
EAU CLAIRE — A warrant has been issued after the defendant in a child pornography case failed to show up for his trial.
Bernardino Ocotl-Montes, 40, Eau Claire, faces six counts of possession of child pornography. His three-day trial was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday after several years of delays. He was found not competent to stand trial in 2022, a year after being charged, and the case was revived this spring.
Court records show that when Ocotl-Montes failed to appear at 9 a.m., Judge Annette Barna adjourned for 15 minutes. He still wasn’t present when the court reconvened, leading Barna to issue a warrant for his arrest over defense objections. Deputies went to Ocotl-Montes’ last known address, but failed to find him.
The decision not to appear will cost Ocotl-Montes. Barna ordered that “all trial related costs” must be repaid by him. That includes the services of two interpreters who were retained for the trial.
According to the criminal complaint, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent a tip to authorities in February 2021 after Facebook flagged a video linked to Ocotl-Montes’ account as possible child pornography.
When investigators spoke to Ocotl-Montes, he said that no one “had recently sent him child pornography.” But he said he had viewed child pornography in a Facebook group about a year earlier, and was blocked by Facebook afterwards.
He also told investigators he had a video on his phone showing a male and female, approximately 16-17 years old, having sex. “At the end of the video, Ocotl-Montes reported that the male was killed for having sexual contact with the female.” The video is believed to have originated in South America.
The phone wound up having five videos of child pornography and showed Ocotl-Montes had used the Telegram app to search for it.
