Former Ledyard Resident Sentenced to More Than Eight Years in Federal Prison for Child Pornography Offenses

Deirdre M. Daly, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Matthew Wallace, 32, formerly of Ledyard, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton in Bridgeport to 100 months of imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release. On March 6, 2013, a jury found Wallace guilty of one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.

According to the evidence disclosed during the trial, on January 19, 2010, a Milford Police detective assigned to the Connecticut Child Exploitation Task Force logged into a peer-to-peer Internet file sharing network and downloaded several images of child pornography from an Internet protocol (IP) address assigned to Wallace at his Ledyard residence. On May 28, 2010, law enforcement agents conducted a court-authorized search of Wallace’s residence and seized computers and hard drives. Forensic examination of the seized items revealed more than 500 images and videos of children, some as young as 5 years old, engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Wallace was arrested on December 16, 2010. He has been detained since March 13, 2013.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Connecticut Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including the Milford Police Department. The Connecticut State Police and the Ledyard Police Department provided valuable assistance to the investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Neeraj Patel and Ray Miller.

The Connecticut Child Exploitation Task Force, which is housed at the main FBI office in New Haven, investigates crimes against children occurring over the Internet and provides computer forensic review services for participating agencies. For more information about the task force, or to report child exploitation crimes, please contact the FBI at 203-777-6311.

This prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

To report cases of child exploitation, please visit www.cybertipline.com.