BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) -- A former Baton Rouge city-parish contractor pleaded guilty to distribution of child pornography.

According to United States Attorney Ronald Gathe Jr., Joseph Steiner, 37, of Baton Rouge, admitted to starting a conversation on a mobile application group chat with an undercover agent.

Steiner reportedly hoped to get access to a group he thought was distributing child pornography. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the undercover agent sent Steiner a message that stated, "Live face video saying today's date."

He proceeded to send the undercover agent a video of himself, stating "Today is March 4th," according to the DOJ. Officials said Steiner also admitted to sending a video of a child who was under the age of 12 being sexually assaulted by a man.

According to the DOJ, Steiner's conviction is "punishable by a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to a lifetime period of supervised release - which includes sex offender registration requirements."