A 26-year-old former Notre Dame graduate student has been sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography.
Yuzhang Cui was expelled from Notre Dame after investigators were able to download child porn files connected to him from an IP address registered to the university. Cui pleaded guilty this week, according to the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office.
As part of the deal, one count of child exploitation was dismissed. The prosecutors’ office says the plea agreement was “reached, in part, because Cui agreed to share decryption keys with the Cybercrimes Unit.”
As a result of this case, his immigration status was revoked. Once he has served his sentence, Cui will be deported.
In late April, officers secured a search warrant and went to Cui’s dorm. They searched his laptop and found hundreds of files of child pornography photos and videos on it, as well as personal documents that confirmed the laptop belonged to Cui.
The photos and videos, which depicted girls as young as 6 being molested and raped by unidentifiable men, were shared with other people on the internet through filesharing programs, according to court documents.
