BOSTON – An Auburn man pleaded guilty today in federal court in Worcester to child pornography offenses.
Jesse Laino, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman scheduled sentencing for Oct. 5, 2022. Laino was arrested and charged by criminal complaint in July 2020. He was subsequently indicted in September 2020 and later charged in a superseding indictment in June 2021.
In May 2019, Laino utilized the Kik platform to upload and distribute two images of sexually explicit images of minors. During a search of Laino’s residence in June 2020, two phones and one laptop were seized, which he admitted contained child pornography. Laino also admitted to using a cloud storage service to store and share links to images and videos of child pornography, as well as to using Chatous, a social media application, to connect with other users for the purpose of obtaining and distributing the images. Chatous records revealed that from about January 2019 to July 2020, Laino participated in hundreds of chats and distributed over 1,700 images of child pornography, including images of infants and toddlers being sexually abused.
The charge of distribution of child pornography provides for a sentence of at least five and up to 20 years in prison, at least five and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of possession of child pornography provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins; Matthew B. Millhollin, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Auburn Police Chief Andrew J. Sluckis, Jr.; and Worcester Police Chief Steven M. Sargent made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen M. Noto of Rollins’ Criminal Division is prosecuting the case.
The case is brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In 2006, the Department of Justice created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.