BOSTON – An Auburn man was sentenced today in federal court in Worcester for child pornography offenses.
Jesse Laino, 26, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman to 88 months in prison and five years of supervised release. On April 6, 2022, Laino pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
In May 2019, Laino utilized the Kik platform to upload and distribute two images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). During a search of Laino’s residence in June 2020, two phones and one laptop seized were found to contain CSAM. Laino also used a cloud storage service to store and share links to images and videos of CSAM as well as to using a social media application to connect with other users for the purpose of obtaining and distributing the images. Social media records revealed that from about January 2019 to July 2020, Laino participated in hundreds of chats and distributed over 1,700 images of CSAM, including images of infants and toddlers being sexually abused.
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’ Worcester Branch Office prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc.