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Press Release

Baldwinsville Man Sentenced to 60 Months for Receiving Child Pornography From an 11-Year-Old Child

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Richard Curtis, age 22, of Baldwinsville, New York, was sentenced today to serve 5 years in federal prison for receiving child pornography, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and New York State Police (NYSP) Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen.

As part of his guilty plea, Curtis admitted that in September of 2017 he asked an 11-year-old child to send him sexually explicit videos of herself over the internet application Instagram.  In his exchanges with the child, the defendant pretended that he was a female fashion designer looking for models. At his direction, the child produced and sent to Curtis five sexually explicit video files.

Chief United States District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby also imposed a 35-year term of supervised release, which will start after Curtis is released from prison, and ordered Curtis to pay a $100 special assessment.  Curtis will also be required to register as a sex offender.

This case was investigated by the FBI Syracuse Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, comprised of FBI Special Agents and Investigators of the New York State Police, Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) and Computer Crimes Unit (CCU).  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey J. L. Brown as a part of Project Safe Childhood.

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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov

Updated June 2, 2022

Topic
Project Safe Childhood