BUFFALO—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Kevin Baron, 42, of Buffalo, New York, was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with possession of child pornography. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who is handling the case, stated that the Erie County Department of Social Services (DSS) received a complaint from a minor female that the defendant sexually molested her. DSS obtained additional information from other minor female children alleging that Baron had previously shown them videos of child pornography. On March 9, 2012, members of the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Task Force executed a federally authorized search warrant at Baron’s residence and seized two Memorex DVD-R discs. The discs contained thousands of images and videos of child pornography, at least three of which are known to have been produced outside of New York State.
The defendant is being detained pending a detention hearing, which was scheduled for April 2, 2012 at 2 p.m. before Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder, Jr.
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 criminal complaint is the culmination of an investigation on the part of members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Crimes Task Force, under the direction of Christopher M. Piehota, Special Agent in Charge. Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the computer.
The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
