North Tonawanda Man Pleas Guilty To Child Pornography Charge

CONTACT: Barbara Burns   
PHONE:       (716) 843-5817 
FAX #:          (716) 551-3051  

BUFFALO, N.Y.-U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross announced today that Matthew Ostrowski, 49, of North Tonawanda, NY, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. to possession of child pornography involving a prepubescent minor. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and a fine of $250,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Higgins, who is handling the case, stated that in October 2019, Ostrowski uploaded and distributed an image containing child pornography to the gaming application Discord. On December 17, 2019, investigators executed a federal search warrant at Ostrowski’s Meadow Drive residence in North Tonawanda and seized seven electronic devices, as well as his iPhone. A forensic analysis of the iPhone recovered 4,204 image files of child pornography and 8,523 images of child exploitative material, a majority of which depicted minors under the age of 12. The search of the iPhone also resulted in the recovery of deleted text conversations between Ostrowski and a minor female victim, who communicated for at least a year over Kik and SnapChat, while the minor female was 15 and 16 years old. During that time, Ostrowski requested that she send him “nudes.” On February 5, 2020, another federal search warrant was executed at the defendant’s residence. Investigators located a computer, which contained 178 image files and five videos of child pornography, a majority of the files depict minors under the age of 12.

The plea is the result of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Matthew Scarpino.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 7, 2022, before Judge Sinatra.

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