Saugerties Man Sentenced on Child Pornography Charge

January 22, 2010 - United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and John F. Pikus, Special Agent-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Albany Division, today announced that ALAN MASKELL, age 62, of Saugerties, New York, was sentenced on January 15, 2010 by the Honorable Thomas J. McAvoy in Federal District Court in Albany on his guilty plea to count one of an indictment charging him with the possession of child pornography. MASKELL was sentenced to 24 months of imprisonment and supervised release for a term of 10 years. He was also ordered to: (1) have no unsupervised contact with minors; and (2) register with the New York State Sex Offender Registry Program. The Court also ordered that a computer be forfeited to the United States.

MASKELL pled guilty on September 8, 2009. In connection with his plea, MASKELL admitted the following in a written plea agreement and during his plea proceeding:

a. At all times relevant herein, ALAN MASKELL resided in Saugerties, New York, which is located in the Northern District of New York.

b. Between about December, 2007 and February 14, 2008, MASKELL, while in his residence, used his Gateway laptop computer, serial no. T2373H1013301 to access the Internet wherein he utilized Yahoo! Messenger; “Ringo” file sharing software; and various websites to view and obtain electronic files/still images that contained child pornography. MASKELL then downloaded some of these child pornography images to the aforementioned laptop computer and saved them in electronic subfolders.

c. Forensic examination of MASKELL’s laptop computer was subsequently conducted. Twelve (12) still images depicting a minor posed in a lewd and lascivious manner, as those terms and phrases are defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 2256(2), were recovered from said computer. All of the images recovered depict actual, as opposed to computer generated, images of minors engaged in such conduct.

d. MASKELL knowingly and willfully possessed the aforesaid images found on said computer. In addition, he possessed the images knowing that they depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. MASKELL obtained such images from, among other places, individuals and websites located outside the State of New York. Moreover, such images, and the actual computer used to obtain and download these depictions, were transported in interstate and foreign commerce and were produced using materials that had been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate and foreign commerce.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Capital Region Cyber Predator Task Force.