Tonawanda Man Pleads Guilty to Possession of Child Pornography

BUFFALO—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Anthony F. Amato, Jr., 39, of Tonawanda, New York, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara to possession of child pornography. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, five years’ supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who is handling the case, stated that on December 17, 2007, a search warrant was executed at the defendant’s residence. Officers found three videos and 17 images of child pornography on a computer and disks. Amato admitted that he obtained the videos and images over the Internet.

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 special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Christopher M. Piehota, special agent in charge; and the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Daniel Derenda. Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the computer.

Sentencing is scheduled for August 30, 2012 at 12:30 p.m. EST in Buffalo, New York in front of U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara.