Chili Man Sentenced on Child Exploitation Charges

ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul announced today that Michael Covello, 43, of Chili, New York, who was convicted of the sexual exploitation of children, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge David G. Larimer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa J. Miller, who handled the case, stated that the defendant distributed child pornography via a peer-to-peer file sharing network to an undercover FBI agent in May and June 2012. Thereafter, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Covello’s home in Chili, where they recovered items of digital media. The items seized contained images of children, many of whom were under the age of 12, engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and many of which depicted acts of violence.

The defendant was previously convicted of sexual abuse, first-degree in Monroe County.

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 Brian P. Boetig.