Tonawanda Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Possessing Child Pornography

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Michael Thomas Fedeson, 39, of Tonawanda, New York, who was convicted of possessing child pornography, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Chief U.S. District Court Judge William M Skretny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo, who handled the case, stated that the defendant shared child pornography through a file-sharing program with an FBI agent. Agents determined the images they received came from Fedeson’s residence. A search of both the defendant’s personal and work computers resulted in the recovery of thousands of images of 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 conviction was the culmination of an investigation on the part of the task force agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Richard W. Kollmar, and the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Daniel Derenda.