Buffalo Man Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Kevin Baron, 43, of Buffalo, New York, who was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced to 168 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the case, stated that on March 9, 2012, the defendant possessed images of child pornography on his personal computer and on DVDs. A forensic analysis of the computer and discs revealed in excess of 600 images of child pornography. The analysis also revealed that a privacy and cleaning software had been installed and was run on February 18, 2012 and February 28, 2012. Some of the images contained depictions of violence against children.

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 sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankel, along with officers of the Cheektowaga Police Department, under the direction of Police Chief David Zack, and the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Daniel Derenda. Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the computer.