Updated 10:05

One of the stars of American TV series ‘Glee’ has signed a plea admitting possession child abuse material.

Actor Mark Salling - who played Puck for six series of the Emmy winning show – has agreed to appear in court and plead guilty at the earliest possible opportunity.

The deal relates to count two of an indictment that alleged Salling possessed two videos depicting the sexual abuse of two girls aged under 12.

Under the deal, the actor has agreed to serve between four and seven years in prison - to be set by the court - and will then have 20 years of supervised release, again with conditions to be set by the court.

The 22-page document says he will pay at least $50,000 to each of his victims seeking restitution and a fine to be set by the court.

The deal does not become binding until Salling has appeared in court and pleaded guilty.

At present, no court date has been set.

Police raid

A laptop, a hard drive, and a USB flash drive were seized from Salling's residence at the end of 2015, according to the US Attorney's office.

Investigators have previously said they found the computer and drives contained thousands of images and videos depicting child sex abuse.

The plea deal says Salling admits that: "Beginning in at least April 2015, and continuing to at least December 2015, (the) defendant used the Internet from his home in Los Angeles.... to download thousands of images of child pornography.

"(The) defendant attempted to conceal his activity using software that masked his IP address.

"However, on at least two occasions in 2015, (the) defendant showed his child pornography to an adult woman in the context of their sexual relationship. This was ultimately reported to law enforcement.

"On December 26, 2015, a search warrant was executed on (the) defendant's home.

"More than 50,000 images and videos of child pornography and child erotica were found on (the) defendant's laptop and another 4,000 images and 160 videos of child pornography were found on (the) defendant's thumb drive."

Prepubescent children

The plea deal says that at least two of the images were created in the UK and one of the videos involved a girl of between three and five-years-old.

It adds that the pornography was organised in a series of folders named "[girl's name] - 2y", "[girl's name] - 3y", "[girl's name] - 4y" and so on, so that "the folders contained... pornography depicting a child... who was two years old, three years old" etc.

It continues that Salling agrees some of the images featured prepubescent children and "sadistic and masochistic conduct and the sexual abuse of infants and toddlers."

Federal indictment

Salling was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department initially on state charges, but prosecutors said the matter was referred to federal authorities when they realised the scope of the material.

It adds that, as a condition of his supervised release, he will be required to register as a sex offender.

Glee ran from 2009 until 2015.