Man Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Jay M. Henke, 35, of Lancaster, NY, who was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced to 27 months in prison by Chief U.S. District Court Judge William M. Skretny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the case, stated that from August 2006 to June 2010, the defendant possessed four images of child pornography that were stored on his e-mail account. These images were obtained from a minor victim who was 15 years old at the time she took and sent the images Henke. The defendant then stored these images using his America Online e-mail account and on AOL servers located in the state of Virginia.

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 sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of James H. Robertson, Special Agent in Charge; along with the Lancaster Police Department, under the direction of Captain Timothy Murphy.