Windsor Locks Man Charged with Child Exploitation Offenses; Victimizing Teens Through Snapchat

DOJ Press

Leonard C Boyle, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Matthew B. Millhollin, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Boston, today announced that JUSTIN McKENNEY, 27, of Windsor Locks, has been charged by federal criminal complaint with multiple child exploitation offenses.

McKenney was arrested on March 17, 2022, in Boston, where he was employed  Following his arrest, he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas O. Farrish in Hartford, who ordered McKenney detained.

As alleged in court documents, in October 2021, Glastonbury Police began investigating the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl by an individual she met on Snapchat.  The investigation revealed that McKenney, posing as a high school student and using the Snapchat username “keepingupg,” began communicating with the minor victim in September 2021, and he subsequently enticed her to engage in sexual activity.

It is further alleged that, between October 2021 and February 2022, McKenney used Snapchat to engage in sexually explicit communications with at least six other minor females in other states.  McKenney sent sexually explicit messages, and sextually explicit images and videos of himself, to minor victims, and he received sexually explicit images and videos from minor victims.


The complaint charges McKenney with enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, which carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years and a maximum term of imprisonment of life; receipt of child pornography, which carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years; possession of child pornography, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years; and transfer of obscene material to a minor, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years.


U.S. Attorney Boyle stressed that a criminal complaint is not evidence of guilt.  Charges are only allegations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This matter is being investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Glastonbury Police Department, the Windsor Locks Police Department, the Manchester Police Department, and the Connecticut Center for Digital Investigations, with the assistance of the Hudson (Mass.) Police Department.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy V. Gifford.

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.

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