Company CEO pleads no contest to child porn possession of child porn

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- The chief executive officer of a San Mateo-based engineering and manufacturing company pleaded no contest to possession of child pornography last week in exchange for a sentence of no more than 16 months in prison, prosecutors said today.

Gordon Bardet, 64, of Hillsborough, the CEO of Pioneer Motor Bearing Co., entered the plea to felony possession of child pornography in the courtroom of Judge Jonathan Karesh last Wednesday, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Bardet first came under investigation for child pornography in 2011 and was searched at San Francisco International Airport as he returned from the United Kingdom on Aug. 29 of that year, prosecutors said.

After finding child pornography on his laptop, investigators searched his home and found other laptops and disks containing child pornography.

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to file federal charges against Bardet, but the county district attorney's office charged him with two counts of child pornography possession and last week Bardet entered the plea for one count in a deal with prosecutors.

He remains out of custody on $250,000 bail and is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 27 and faces up to 16 months in state prison. He will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, prosecutors said.