Pennsylvania Man Sentenced for Producing Child Pornography

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Randall Lose, 37, of Howard, Pennsylvania, who was convicted of production of child pornography, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10 years’ supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie P. Grisanti and Maura O’Donnell, who handled the case, stated that the city of Tonawanda Police Department received a complaint from the parent of a 13-year-old and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The defendant, who resided in Pennsylvania, used the Internet to communicate with and obtain sexual explicit videos of a minor female living in Western New York.
Knowing that the victim was 13 years old, Lose represented himself as a fellow teenager, claiming that he was 14 years old. The defendant convinced the victim to take her clothes off and to engage in graphic sexual activity as he watched over Skype from his residence in Pennsylvania. As he watched and recorded, Lose gave the victim instructions about what conduct to engage in. The defendant also tried to get the victim to give him information about her friends so he could communicate with them as well.
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 sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the city of Tonawanda Police Department, under the direction of Chief William Strassburg; and the Cheektowaga Police Department, under the direction of David Zak.

Tefft Pleads Guilty to Receiving Child Pornography

ALBANY, NY—TIMOTHY TEFFT, age 65, of Greenwich, New York, pled guilty today in Albany before Chief United States District Court Judge Gary L. Sharpe to one count of receiving child pornography, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and Andrew W. Vale, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Albany Division. TEFFT faces at least five years of imprisonment and up to a maximum sentence of 20 years of imprisonment. TEFFT was detained pending his sentencing.
During the plea hearing, TEFFT admitted that between January 1, 2009 and May 3, 2011, he accessed the Internet and downloaded and possessed, from various websites, dozens of files that contained child pornography. TEFFT further admitted that on occasion he would save the child pornography files onto a thumb drive in order to view the files at a later time.
Sentencing is scheduled for September 3, 2014, at 9:00 a.m. in Albany, New York. This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rick Belliss.

Konn Convicted of Child Pornography Offenses

ALBANY, NY—Today, a federal jury trial that began Monday ended in the conviction of STEPHEN J. KONN, 63, of Clifton Park, New York, of the felony offenses of distribution of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and Andrew W. Vale, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
KONN faces a statutory mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for five years and a maximum sentence of imprisonment for 20 years for each of the distribution and receipt convictions, and a maximum sentence of imprisonment for 10 years for the possession conviction, as well as a lifetime term of supervised release, a maximum fine of $250,000, and mandatory registration as a sex offender. KONN, who was remanded, will be sentenced in Albany on September 4, 2014 by United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino.
The evidence presented at trial showed that KONN, a retired employee from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, used a peer-to-peer file-trading program to distribute child pornography to an undercover FBI agent via the Internet. A subsequent search of KONN’s Clifton Park residence uncovered a computer containing more than 4,000 images and 800 videos of child pornography and evidence that KONN had been trading child pornography over the Internet for years.
This prosecution resulted from an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Albany Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Wayne A. Myers.