COVINGTON - St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Warren Montgomery says a 33-year-old Covington man has been sentenced to 18 years after pleading guilty to 79 counts of child pornography.

He says in a news release that Christopher Cote pleaded guilty Thursday. Montgomery says District Judge Peter Garcia sentenced him to serve the time without probation, parole or suspension of sentence.

Montgomery says an undercover officer in the multi-agency Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force identified Cote online as a potential child predator and had chat room conversations with him. He says that after about a year of such conversations, agents went to Cote's home and he let them look at his computer.

Montgomery says forensic analysis turned up 79 pornographic images of children, ranging in ages from toddler to 7 years old.