BATON ROUGE — A registered sex offender arrested in 2018 on child porn charges pleaded guilty in federal court, a U.S. Attorney said Wednesday.

Thomas Mills, 58, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after a jury trial before a federal judge.

Mills was arrested in October 2018 after Zachary Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked behind a party store. After telling police he was cleaning his car behind the buildings and handing police his driver's license, the Baton Rouge man was identified as a registered sex offender.

Mills initially told officers that he lived in Zachary but was registered as a sex offender in Baton Rouge, so officers believed that Mills was possibly in violation of state sex offender registration laws. Mills then nervously spoke with the officers before they searched his car, and they found a laptop and a USB storage device.

Nineteen devices were seized from Mills and sent to a forensic examiner, who revealed 1,325 pictures and six videos depicting child exploitation images.

Mills was on probation for a 2012 federal felony conviction for possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to 62 months in prison for this conviction.