Greece Man Sentenced For Possession Of Child Pornography

CONTACT:      Barbara Burns
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ROCHESTER, N.Y.--U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Gordon Link, 78, of Greece, NY, who was convicted of attempted possession of child pornography, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and 10 years supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig R. Gestring, who handled the case, stated that in October 2013, a Rochester mother texted a photograph of her 10 year old daughter to a friend via her cellular phone. The photograph depicted the young child, fully clothed, seated at a table with a doll at her birthday party. However, the woman mistakenly sent the child’s photograph to the wrong cell phone number, the number belonging to the defendant.

Link immediately sent several sexually suggestive texts back to the woman about the child’s image. The woman became concerned and contacted the police, who in turn, contacted the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force for assistance. A task force officer assigned to the unit assumed the child’s identity online, claiming to be 15 years old, and engaged in chats with the defendant. During several sessions, the defendant solicited the girl to send him sexually explicit photographs of her body. Link also engaged in sexually explicit chats with the girl and tried to meet her in person. Federal agents executed a search warrant at the defendant’s home and seized the cell phone Link used to communicate with the child.

At sentencing, Judge Wolford said that the defendant knew exactly what he was doing when he engaged in sexually explicit chats with the child. In concluding her remarks, Judge Wolford told the defendant “you are in fact a predator.” Link was immediately detained following sentencing and was remanded to the Custody of the United States Marshal’s Service.

The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of Officers of the Greece Police Department, under the direction of Chief Patrick Phelan; Officers of the Rochester Police Department, under the direction of Chief Michael Ciminelli; and Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Child Exploitation Task Force.