BATON ROUGE - A former Baton Rouge city-parish contractor pleaded guilty to distribution of child pornography Friday, according to the United States Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice said Blake Steiner, 37, initiated a conversation on a group chat with an undercover agent thinking he would gain access to a group chat disseminating child pornography. After being told by the agent to send a video of his face with the day's date, he sent the video and also sent a video of a 12-year-old being sexually assaulted by an adult man to try and gain access to the group.

The conviction holds a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to a lifetime of supervised released including the sex offender registration requirements.