Elmira Man Charged in Child Pornography Case
| U.S. Attorney’s Office May 10, 2011 |
ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Lawrence E. Cook, 47, of Elmira, NY, was charged by complaint with the knowing receipt and distribution of child pornography. The charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison, a maximum penalty of 20 years, and a fine of $250,000.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Lee, who is handling the case, stated that the complaint alleges that in September 2010, after conducting an undercover investigation involving the use of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, New York State Police executed a search at defendant’s residence of 1159 Shannon Avenue, Elmira, NY. Several computers and disks were seized. A review of some of the thousands of images recovered from one of the computer hard drives identified approximately 250 image which appeared to depict child pornography. The complaint further alleges that the defendant admitted to obtaining, viewing, and deleting child pornography files on his computer.
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 complaint is the culmination of an investigation on the part of the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Task Force, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Richard W. Kollmar, and the New York State Police’s Computer Crimes Unit, under the direction of Captain Frank Pace.
The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.