A Lone Tree man pleaded guilty Friday to owning “hundreds of thousands” of explicit images of children, including babies and toddlers.

The Lone Tree Police Department began investigating 29-year-old Daryl Henry Joe Jr. in March 2024 regarding sexually explicit images being linked to his address, according to a news release from the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Joe later admitted to possessing and distributing the images and pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children and possession and distribution of child pornography, authorities said.

Joe is set to be sentenced on June 20 and could receive between probation and 24 years in prison.

“Each time an image of child sexual abuse material is viewed, the child in that image is victimized,” Deputy District Attorney Abby Hegarty said in the release. “A person in this state can possess any amount of child pornography and still be eligible for probation. This case shows how broken our state’s laws are.”

District Attorney George Brauchler echoed those sentiments: “Once again, Colorado’s laws are deliberately inadequate to protect our children. Nobody should be able to possess jillions of images of children being sexually victimized and then avoid prison. This is something that is fixable by a legislature.”