Man Sentenced in Child Pornography Case

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Zakary Lane Siders, 25, of Niagara Falls, New York, who was convicted of transportation of child pornography on January 2, 2013, was sentenced to five years’ incarceration by U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Maura K. O’Donnell, who handled the case, stated that the defendant had been convicted of transportation of child pornography when he sought out and received over 60 pornographic images of a minor via the Internet and transported a hard-drive containing the images to Western New York.

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 conviction was 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.