Brevard Man Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison for Production of Child Pornography

ORLANDO, FL—U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton announces that U.S. District Judge John Antoon, II today sentenced William Ciccotto (age 52, of Brevard County) to 30 years in federal prison, to be followed by a life term of supervised release, for producing child pornography. Ciccotto had pleaded guilty on April 29, 2010.

According to court documents, Ciccotto created a fictitious myspace account in the name of "Cindy Westin." He then posed as "Cindy," posting pictures on the account of a young girl between the ages of 13 and 14, along with some of her "friends," and writing comments using the lexicon of a young teenage girl. Ciccotto then methodically contacted actual young girls on myspace, befriended them as "Cindy Westin," chatted with them about sex, and sent them naked pictures of a young girl whom he represented was "Cindy." Through this deception and manipulation, Ciccotto convinced a number of young girls to take sexually explicit photographs of themselves and to send them to their friend, "Cindy." At times, he convinced his young victims to engage in sexually explicit activity by sending them other child pornography and persuading them to mimic the activity in the videos and photographs that he sent. Sometimes, the child pornography images that he sent them were the images of his previous victims.

Ciccotto admitted that, during his online communications with these young girls, he obtained their telephone numbers and communicated with them via text messaging using a special trac phone that he purchased specifically for this purpose and to conceal his true identity. Ciccotto said that at times some of these young girls told him where they were, and he would go to that location to watch them. Law enforcement agents also recovered evidence that Ciccotto had tried to meet two of his young victims to have sex with them.

On January 26, 2010, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at Ciccotto's home in Micco, Florida and seized his computers. Agents located more than 3500 pictures of child pornography and more than 1700 videos of child pornography on his computers.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the 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 locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov and click on the tab "other resources" or please visit the Attorney General of Florida's website www.safeflorida.net.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Karen L. Gable.