Tag Archive for: child

Cumberland Man Admits to Possessing Child Pornography | USAO-RI

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PROVIDENCE – A Cumberland man whose email and IP address were used to access and view child pornography pleaded guilty today in federal court to a charge of possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.

Patrick K. Newton, 27, was found on March 30, 2022, by Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agents and members of the Rhode Island State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to be in possession of child pornography stored on electronic media storage devices belonging to him.

In January 2022, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children provided HSI with information they obtained from a Canadian-based online messaging and chat service that, on multiple dates, an IP address and email, later determined by law enforcement to belong to Newton, was used on multiple dates to access and view child pornography.

At the time of the court-authorized search of Newton’s residence in March 2022, a preliminary forensic audit of a thumb drive belonging to Newtown was found to contain videos depicting child pornography.

Newton is scheduled to be sentenced on January 12, 2023. The defendant’s sentence will be determined by a federal district judge after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Paul F. Daly, Jr. 

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Five Defendants Indicted in a Conspiracy to Distribute Child Pornography | USAO-SDFL

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Miami, Florida – A federal grand jury in West Palm Beach has charged five men with one count of conspiracy to distribute child pornography and multiple counts of distribution and solicitation of child pornography. 

Anthony Wayne Santiago, 28, of Novi, MI; Jacob Dominic VanDyke, 25, of Muskegon, MI; Johnathan Scott Fleak, 32, of Pryor, OK; Aaron Ray Iuliano, 27, of Ravenna, OH; and Michael Paul Gianfrancesco, 39, of Livingston, TN, were members of a chat room predicated on the distribution of pornography of children under the age of 13 years.

According to the indictment, from September to October 2021, the five defendants entered and participated in a private online chat.  These defendants all distributed and or solicited child pornography amongst more than 50 other individuals.

Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Anthony Salisbury, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Ric Bradshaw, Sheriff, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO), made the announcement.

HSI Miami and PBSO investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about the Project Safe Childhood initiative and for information regarding Internet safety, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

An indictment contains mere allegations and defendants are innocent unless found guilty in a court of law.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case number 22-cr-80127.

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Orange Park Man Pleads Guilty To Receipt Of Child Sex Abuse Images Over The Internet | USAO-MDFL

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Jacksonville, Florida – United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Charles Lelande Boston (32, Orange Park) today pleaded guilty to receiving materials over the internet depicting the sexual abuse of children. Boston faces a minimum mandatory term of 5 years, and up to 20 years, in federal prison. Boston was arrested on August 12, 2021, and remains in custody. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

According to the plea agreement, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) conducted an online investigation on a file-sharing network for files containing materials depicting the sexual abuse of children. In January, March, and April 2021, a CCSO detective connected with a computer that had files depicting the sexual abuse of children available online for sharing. Homeland Security Investigations and CCSO later executed a search warrant at the residence associated with that computer and Boston was determined to be the owner of the computer. An examination of Boston’s computer revealed a folder of downloaded files containing approximately 80 files depicting the sexual abuse of children.

This case was investigated by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ashley Washington.

It is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

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Alleged child sex abuser’s phone hack claims rubbished by expert

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Trevor Fernandes at Swindon Crown Court.

Trevor Fernandes at Swindon Crown Court.

Only high-end criminal gangs or state-sponsored actors could hack a phone in the way a man accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl claims happened to him, an expert has told the court.

MoD-trained forensic expert and ethical hacker Tony Haddow said it was “extremely unlikely” a hacker could have gained remote access to Trevor Fernandes’s Samsung to set up an encrypted partition without his knowledge.

Fernandes is charged with convincing a Texan girl to strip naked and perform lewd acts on herself, her baby sister and pet dog, before threatening to release sexually explicit images of her unless she complied with his every instruction.

The messages, sent on Instagram and Kik, were traced by American police back to the 37-year-old’s address in Swindon, and by the National Crime Agency to his Samsung Galaxy S10, where he had an encrypted partition that held the apps in question.

Swindon Crown Court heard yesterday that Fernandes “denied all knowledge” of the partition, known as Knox, and claimed “someone else hacked into his phone”.

‘China and Russia would have that capability’

Today (May 13), Mr Haddow told the court that only a hostile, state-sponsored actor such as Russia or China, or a high-end criminal gang, could hack into the phone to set up Knox to open biometrically, and not alert the user of the phone.

He said he “wouldn’t say anything is impossible”, but when asked what skillset someone would need to be able to carry this out, he said “hostile states like China, Russia, would have that capability”.

“It’s not the capability that a general avid user would have,” he added.

In a day of evidence dedicated to forensic analysis of Fernandes’s Samsung, Mr Haddow, head of forensic at cyber security company 4Secure, was asked whether “anything is possible” once a hacker has penetrated a device.

READ MORE: Swindon man ‘used nude images to convince teen to perform sex act on dog’

“It is a very specialised skillset,” he told jurors. “Someone would have to be pretty determined.”

Later, Mr Haddow cited the Israeli government’s Pegasus malware, exposed in 2016, where he said that it was…

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