Former construction exec to plead guilty to 2 child-porn charges

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The former Milwaukee construction executive Brian Ganos has agreed to plead guilty to two of three charges filed against him in a child-pornography case.

The former Sonag Construction owner accepted a plea agreement in the case on Friday. Prosecutors charged him with three federal child-pornography counts in early November. Ganos then pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He partially reversed course on Friday, agreeing to plead guilty to two of the counts in exchange for the court’s dropping the third. As a result, Ganos could spend up to 40 years in prison and owe $500,000.

The agreement filed on Friday describes how investigators first linked Ganos to child pornography. The document said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent the Wisconsin Department of Justice three tips about pornographic images of children uploaded to the Internet by a Microsoft account.

The DOJ traced the account to Ganos, and in March, Muskego police searched his home and SUV. Police said they found child porn on his iPhone and his work laptop. Court documents said he had more than a dozen images and videos of child porn in his possession, depicting children as young as preschool age, and in one instance, what could have been an infant.

The child-porn case is the latest of Ganos’ legal troubles. He was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison in December for orchestrating a decade-long scheme that exploited programs meant to help minority companies win construction contracts. Prosecutors said he collected between $10 million and $15 million in profits from at least 245 set-aside contracts.

The judge ordered him to voluntarily report to prison on March 6, following the expected conclusion of the child-porn case. It’s unclear if the timeline will change because of the new plea agreement. Follow @WLJReporter