Actor Mark Salling dies weeks after child porn guilty plea

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah "Puck" Puckerman in the hit musical-comedy "Glee," died today, several weeks after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He was 35.

Salling pleaded guilty in December after authorities said a search of his computer found more than 50,000 images of child porn. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 7, and prosecutors planned to ask a judge to send him to prison for four to seven years.

A law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly says Salling was found hanging in a riverbed area in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles. The official says the actor's death is being investigated as a suicide.

"I can confirm that Mark Salling passed away early this morning," the actor's attorney, Michael J. Proctor, said in an email to The Associated Press.

"Mark was a gentle and loving person, a person of great creativity, who was doing his best to atone for some serious mistakes and errors of judgment," Proctor said, adding the actor's family asked that its request for privacy be respected.

Proctor did not reveal the cause of Salling's death.