Saranac Lake Man Pleads to Receipt of Child Pornography

ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Michael Bombard, 24, of Saranac Lake, New York, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa to receipt 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 between August and September 2011, Bombard engaged in sexually explicit chats with a 14-year old-female he met online. The defendant requested that the girl send him sexually explicit images of herself. At the time he received the images, Bombard knew that the images constituted 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.justice.gov/psc.

The plea is the culmination of an investigation on the part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cyber Task Force, under the direction of Richard M. Frankel, Acting Special Agent in Charge.

Sentencing is scheduled for August 19, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. before Judge Siragusa.