Edison Man Pleads Guilty to Production, Distribution of Child Sex Abuse Images
| U.S. Attorney’s Office September 04, 2013 |
TRENTON, NJ—An Edison, New Jersey man who once worked as a school crossing guard admitted today to taking compromising photographs of a naked child and distributing them and hundreds of other photographs of child sexual abuse over the Internet, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Kenneth Christensen, 44, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan in Trenton federal court to an information charging him with one count of production of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography. He has been detained since his arrest in February 2013.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
During his guilty plea proceeding, Christensen—who worked as a school crossing guard in Metuchen, New Jersey, prior to his arrest—admitted that in 2012, he sent four individuals e-mails containing several hundred images of child pornography, including sadistic and masochistic conduct. Christensen acknowledged he distributed more than 600 such images.
Christensen also admitted that some of the files he distributed were photographs he took himself, including in his own bedroom, of a naked, prepubescent child who was bound in some of the images.
The production count carries a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison. The distribution count carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. Each count also carries a maximum $250,000 fine. Christensen is also required to register as a sex offender. Sentencing is scheduled for December 9, 2013.
U.S. Attorney Fishman praised special agents with the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Aaron T. Ford, for the investigation.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Eskew of the U.S. Attorney’s Office General Crimes Unit in Newark.