Former Hudson County Teacher Sentenced to More Than 10 Years in Prison for Distributing Images of Child Sexual Abuse Over the Internet
| U.S. Attorney’s Office February 26, 2014 |
TRENTON, NJ—A former substitute teacher at a private school in Jersey City, New Jersey, was sentenced today to 121 months in prison for distributing images of child sexual abuse over the Internet, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Guy West, 45, of Jersey City, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan to an information charging him with one count of distribution of child pornography. Judge Sheridan imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court:
West was working as a permanent substitute teacher who regularly taught and supervised children between the ages of 2 and 14 at the time of his January 2013 arrest. West admitted that on December 18, 2012, he made images and videos of child pornography stored on his computer available for others to download via a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. On that date, an undercover law enforcement agent successfully downloaded 120 images and 24 videos of child sexual abuse from West via the file-sharing network.
As part of his guilty plea, West agreed to forfeit the computers and computer accessories he used to commit the offense.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Sheridan sentenced West to serve a lifetime of supervised release. Restitution is to be determined.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, Newark Division’s Child Exploitation Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Aaron T. Ford in Newark; officers of the Jersey City Police Department, under the direction of Chief of Police Robert Cowan; and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Acting Prosecutor Gaetano T. Gregory with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Alfonzo Walsman of the U.S. Attorney’s Office General Crimes Unit in Newark.