Baldwinsville Man Pleads Guilty to Receipt of Child Pornography

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Richard Curtis, age 22, of Baldwinsville, New York, pled guilty yesterday to one count of receiving child pornography over the Internet.

The announcement was made by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and New York State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen.

As part of his guilty plea, Curtis admitted that in September 2017 he asked an 11-year-old child to send him sexually explicit videos over Instagram.  In his exchanges with the child, the defendant pretended that he was a female fashion designer looking for models.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 24, 2022, before Chief United States District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby.  Curtis faces at least 5 years and up to 20 years in prison, and a term of supervised release of between 5 years and life. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors.  Curtis will also be required to register as a sex offender.

This case was investigated by the FBI Syracuse Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, comprised of FBI Special Agents and Investigators of the New York State Police, Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) and Computer Crimes Unit (CCU), and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey J. L. Brown as part of Project Safe Childhood.

Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorney’s 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc.