Syracuse Man Sentenced to 40 Months for Violating His Sex Offender Registration Obligations and the Conditions of His Federal Supervised Release

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Justin Donohue, age 38, of Syracuse, was sentenced today for violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act by failing to notify the New York State Sex Offender Registry of a social media and email account he created and used, and for violating the conditions of his supervised release for a prior federal child pornography conviction. United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman, United States Marshal David McNulty, and Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made the announcement. 

United States District Judge Hon. Glenn T. Suddaby sentenced Donohue to serve 16 months imprisonment for failing to report Snapchat and Gmail accounts to the Sex Offender Registry, as required by law.  In his earlier guilty plea, Donohue admitted that he created the email account using a false name and accessed it 67 times on an unreported cellular telephone that he possessed in violation of his conditions of supervised release.  Investigators found that the email address was used to join at least twelve child pornography trading groups online, but that Donohue regularly factory reset his phone, thereby deleting all data.  

Donohue was further sentenced to serve a consecutive term of 24 months in prison for violating the conditions of his supervised release by having contact with a known felon, possessing the unreported cellular telephone, failing to register his internet accounts, and falsifying monthly probation reports. 

Following his terms of incarceration, Donohue will be returned to supervised release for another 20 years and will continue to be required to register as a sex offender.

Donohue’s case was investigated by the United States Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)-Mid-state Child Exploitation Task Force in cooperation with the New York State Police, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa M. Fletcher as part of Project Safe Childhood.

Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorney’s 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc.