An Aug. 28 sentencing hearing was confirmed Friday for a 21-year-old Banning man who sexually assaulted two young boys and made videos of the acts.
John Edward Lario pleaded guilty in May to two counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old and sentence-enhancing allegations of targeting more than one minor in a sex crime. Under his pretrial agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, seven related charges were dismissed in exchange for Lario’s admissions.
During a status hearing at the Banning Justice Center Friday, Superior Court Judge Sylvia Luttrell conferred with the prosecution and defense about a prospective sentencing date, and both sides agreed that the end of August would work best.
The stipulated sentence under the plea deal calls for 50 years to life in state prison.
Lario is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Smith Correctional Facility.
He was arrested in 2024 following an investigation by the multi-agency Riverside County Child Exploitation Team, or RCCET.
According to prosecutors, the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs contacted U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in early September 2024 after overseas law enforcement personnel discovered internet-based child pornography traceable to a local resident.
HIS and RCCET coordinated efforts to identify the party responsible for circulating the obscene matter and ultimately connected it to Lario, compiling sufficient evidence to procure a search warrant, which was served at his Charles Street home on Sept. 3, 2024, when he was taken into custody without incident.
“That led to the identity of the (first) victim, an 8-year-old boy,” according to the D.A.’s office.
Additional investigative work turned up a second boy who had been similarly abused, according to the criminal complaint. The document identified the youths only by their initials — “N.B.” and “N.L.”
Court papers indicated the latter child was repeatedly assaulted, beginning in the fall of 2022 and continuing until early September 2024.
It was unclear how the victims originally came into contact with Lario, or how many of the encounters were videotaped and disseminated.
The defendant has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.