NEWPORT — A 38-year-old Grantham man pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced from a total of 11½ years to 23 years in state prison in Sullivan Superior Court on Tuesday, New Hampshire State Police said in a news release.

Ricardo Vera, a former research scientist at U.S. Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center in Hanover, was arrested in 2021 and charged with multiple counts of possession of child abuse images, distribution and indecent exposure, according to New Hampshire court records.

Members of the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force searched Vera’s home on Butternut Road in Grantham in January 2021 after receiving a “cybertip” from the private nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which alerted authorities that computers at Vera’s residence may have been used to possess or distribute child pornography, police announced at the time.

Vera, who had been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest nearly 14 months ago, has the ability to suspend two years of his minimum sentence upon completion of a sexual offender program at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord, state police said.

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