Molester sentenced for child porn

BUFFALO, N.Y. (RELEASE) - U.S. Attorney William Hochul, Jr. announced today that John C. Scott, 54, of Buffalo, New York, who was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced to 17 years in prison and lifetime supervised release by U.S. District Court Chief Judge William M. Skretny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the case, stated that on October 20, 2006, Scott was arrested by the Buffalo Police Department for the sexual abuse of two minor children. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 1 1/2 to 3 years in prison. While he was incarcerated, Scott's former residence was sold. In November, 2007, the new owner discovered CDs and floppy disks in a storage shed that appeared to contain child pornography. The disks, which contained approximately 555 images and 29 movies, were turned over to Buffalo Police who investigated the case along with the Innocent Images Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cyber Crimes Task Force.

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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals 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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov .

The conviction was the culmination of an investigation on the part of Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent-In-Charge James H. Robertson along with Detectives of the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Daniel Derenda. Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the computer disks.