Messina Man Sentenced for Using the Internet to Entice Minors to Engage in Sexual Activity

ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Richard Alred, 48, of Messina, N.Y., formerly of Horseheads, N.Y., who was convicted of using an interstate facility to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual conduct, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 15 years’ supervised release by U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Lee, who handled the case, stated between December 2008 and January 2009, while residing in Horseheads, the defendant engaged in Internet chats with a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl. During the exchanges, Alred made repeated attempts to have the 13-year-old send sexually explicit pictures of herself to him. In fact, the person the defendant thought was a juvenile was a Pennsylvania law enforcement officer who was acting in an undercover capacity.

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 sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Christopher M. Piehota and the New York State Police under the direction of Major Mark Koss.