A 41-year-old Abingdon man has been sentenced to serve 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography that investigators learned about by monitoring emails.
Nicholas Paul Pedone also will be on lifetime supervised release after he leaves prison and will be required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, according Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, who announced the sentence along with Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt of the FBI.
Pedone pleaded guilty Oct. 28 and was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett in Baltimore Federal District Court.
According to a statement of facts incorporated into his plea agreement with prosecutors, Pedone admitted being involved in the collection and distribution of child pornography.
In March 2013, an agent in the Violent Crimes Against Children Section of the FBI was reviewing the email account of a user that contained child pornography and saw that this user had been corresponding with Pedone by email, according to the statement of facts. One of the user's emails to Pedone contained two images depicting naked pre-pubescent and early pubescent males and females.
"In October 2013, using an undercover email account, the agent contacted Pedone and asked him 'care to trade,' to which Pedone replied, 'what kind,'" the statement of facts continues. "After the agent replied 'i like mostly girls 2-12,' Pedone sent the agent at least 9 images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct."
"On October 18, 2013, the agent executed a search warrant on Pedone's email account which revealed that Pedone had sent and received thousands of emails containing depictions of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and that the emails and image files were saved in Pedone's email account," according to the statement of facts.
These emails were sent and received between Pedone and dozens of other email accounts, the U.S. Attorney's Office noted in a statement announcing Monday's sentencing.
On Dec. 6, 2013, a search warrant was executed at Pedone's home, at which time two computers were seized, according to the statement of facts. During a forensic examination of the computers, images of child pornography were found.
"The examination also revealed numerous communications between Pedone and other individuals that related the possessing and sharing child pornography," the statement of facts continues.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, this case was 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. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit http://www.justice.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, visit http://www.justice.gov/psc and click on the "resources" tab on the left of the page.
Rosenstein commended the FBI for its work in the investigation and thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul E. Budlow, who prosecuted the case.