Courtesy of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
According to Ryan, the material in Vertilus’ collection will be sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Child Victim Identification Program to ascertain which of the children depicted in the photos and videos have been identified and saved by law enforcement.
By Forum Staff
A Long Island City man has been indicted for allegedly downloading, saving, and then sharing thousands of photos and videos of children as young as 4 years old being sexually abused by adults, Chief Assistant District Attorney John Ryan, on behalf of Queens DA Richard Brown, announced on Thursday.
Dodelyn Vertilus, 40, was arraigned last week on a 3,201-count indictment. He is charged with 983 counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child as a sexually motivated felony and 2,218 counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child. Bail was set at $50,000 cash; and Vertilus was ordered to return to court on June 27.
According to the charges, on July 18, 2017, an investigator with the New York State Police was utilizing law enforcement software designed to search and identify individuals, via their Internet Protocol address, who are offering to distribute child sexual abuse material. The software identified the IP address that was continuously sharing files on the peer to peer network. The IP address was identified as belonging to the internet account at Vertilus’ residence. The investigator was able to make a direct connection to the computer at that IP address on seventeen different occasions between July 18 and Sept. 13, 2017, and downloaded a total of 983 images and videos, all of which depicted child sexual abuse. The files had titles such as “Gold 3yo.” The files depicted children as young as 3 years old being sexually abused by adult men or being forced to pose in a lewd manner.
According to the charges, a court-authorized search warrant was executed at Vertilus’ 29th Street residence on Oct. 6, 2017, and numerous electronic devices were recovered. Forensic analysis of the recovered devices revealed that Vertilus allegedly had numerous images on his laptop, as well as images and videos on his cell phone and seven thumb drives. The forensic analysis identified a total of 2,218 files which all contained child sexual abuse material. Most of the material contained in Vertilus’ collection depicted children under 12 years old being sexually abused by adults.
Furthermore, according to the charges, Vertilus said that “I have child pornography on the computer and I downloaded it to view it.”
If convicted, Vertilus faces up to seven years in prison.
