A Bayside man last week pleaded guilty to a child-porn charge after more than 10,000 photographs and videos of underage boys and girls were discovered on his computer hard drives, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Christopher DeNicola, 32, pleaded guilty last Thursday to promoting the sexual performance of a child. Supreme Court Justice John Zoll indicated he will sentence DeNicola to two to six years in prison on Sept. 10.
According to the charges, special agents from the Department of Homeland Security executed a court-authorized search warrant on May 5 at the Bell boulevard home DeNicola shares with his parents. Cops confiscated 34 pieces of electronic media including a desktop computer which had 10 external hard drives connected to it. A forensic examination of the recovered evidence uncovered more than 10,000 images and videos of children being sexually abused. The defendant downloaded, sorted and organized these files by name or series, including labeling some “pre-teen hard core.” DeNicola admitted he’d been trading child pornography on peer-to-peer networks for years.
“It is important to remember that these images are for all intents and purposes crime scenes—they depict real children being cruelly victimized both physically and emotionally,” Brown noted. “The memories of their abuse will be with them for the rest of their lives.”
Brown went on to say that the case resulted from Operation Caireen, which focused on individuals involved in the sharing of files of child abuse on peer-to-peer networks.
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com