Wayne County Man Sentenced in Child Pornography Case

ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Steven Lewis, 39, of Ontario, New York, who was convicted of possession child pornography, was sentenced to 48 months in prison and 15 years’ supervised release by U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Lee, who is handling the case, stated that the defendant possessed over 600 images of child pornography on each of at least two computers in his possession. Lewis received and distributed the images using file sharing software. The images included prepubescent children and involved depictions of violence. The images were recovered after a search warrant was executed by members of the New York State Police Computer Crimes Unit at the residence the defendant shared with his father, Edward Lewis, on Knickerbocker Road. The search warrant occurred after a New York State investigator was able to download images of child pornography from the Internet protocol address subscribed by the defendant.

Edward Lewis pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on October 2, 2012.

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 the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Task Force, under the direction of Christopher Piehota, Special Agent in Charge; and the New York State Police’s Computer Crimes, Unit under the direction of Captain Frank Pace.