LOS ANGELES – A previously convicted sex offender from Huntington Beach was sentenced yesterday to 312 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to production of child pornography for filming sexually explicit videos of an 8-year-old girl.

Gary Samuel Cochran, 53, was sentenced by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson pursuant to a plea agreement Cochran entered into last year.

Cochran pleaded guilty in September to one count of production of child pornography, a charge that carries a mandatory minimum of 25 years in federal prison. In the plea agreement, Cochran admitted that he produced sexually explicit videos of the 8-year-old victim while on a trip to the beach with the girl and her family in 2007. When authorities searched Cochran’s residence in 2008, they discovered the videos of the victim, as well as “hundreds of videos and images depicting what defendant knew was child pornography.”

Cochran previously was convicted of child molestation in Orange County Superior Court in 1991.

Following the prison sentence, Cochran will be on supervised release for the rest of his life.

“Fighting child exploitation is a key priority of the Justice Department," said United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. “Cochran failed to learn from his first conviction and instead engaged in criminal conduct that victimized a child and an entire family, making him worthy of the lengthy sentence imposed by the Court.”

The case against Cochran was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

“As this sentencing makes clear, child sex predators who reoffend can expect to experience the full weight of the law,” said Claude Arnold, Special Agent in Charge for ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles. “We will continue to aggressively target those who prey upon and sexually exploit our children. We owe it to the young victims in these cases, who will carry the emotional and physical scars of these crimes with them for the rest of their lives.”

Cochran was one of 52 defendants charged in 2008 as part of a coordinated sweep that targeted individuals using peer-to-peer networks to exchange child pornography.