Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Producing and Possessing Child Pornography

ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Mark Allen Youngs, 48, of Bath, NY, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and production of child pornography,  was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 40 years’ supervised by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Lee, who handled the case, stated that in December 2006, NYS Police received a lead from the New York State Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force which led to the execution of a search warrant at the home of Mark Youngs. Youngs' Gateway computer was searched, and images of child pornography, including images of prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, were discovered. A later search performed by the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory found that Youngs had used a minor under the age of 5 to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography.

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

The plea was the culmination of an investigation on the part of the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, under the direction of Captain Frank Pace, and special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of James H. Robertson.