ALBANY, NEW YORK – Zachary L. Duchesne, age 25, of Stillwater, New York, pled guilty today to seven counts of transportation of child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.
The announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon and Matthew Scarpino, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Duchesne admitted to using a Dropbox account to store, possess and view images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, between December 26, 2017 and June 23, 2019. He admitted to periodically transferring child pornography videos into his Dropbox account, and to using the stored child pornography as a form of “currency” to trade with other people.
Duchesne has been in custody since his arrest on July 15, 2020.
Duchesne, who has a prior conviction relating to the possession of child pornography, faces at least 15 years and up to 40 years in prison, and at least 5 years of post-imprisonment supervised release, when Senior United States District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy sentences him on January 11, 2022. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors. Duchesne would also have to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.
This case was investigated by HSI, with assistance from the Stillwater Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett as part of Project Safe Childhood.
Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorney’s offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), and is designed to marshal federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
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