A former Lincoln particular police officer and dispatcher was sentenced to 5 years in jail adopted by 5 years of supervised launch for possessing youngster pornography.
Spencer Hughes, 33, of Randolph — who additionally labored at one time as a lodge safety guard, in keeping with a badge present in his dwelling in the course of the investigation — had pleaded responsible Jan. 6 to at least one depend of receipt of kid pornography and one depend of possession of kid pornography involving a prepubescent minor or a minor who had not attained 12 years of age. He was arrested in October 2020.
Judge Denise J. Casper sentenced him in federal courtroom this week. The sentence was on the low finish for federal pointers, which stipulate a compulsory minimal sentence of 5 to twenty years in jail, 5 years to lifetime of supervised launch and a nice of as much as $250,000.
Like within the case of Stephanie Lak, the 37-year-old Roxbury former nanny who obtained three years in state jail when she pleaded responsible to youngster pornography fees in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday, Hughes was actively buying and selling youngster pornography on the Kik messaging app.
Hughes glided by the identify “trainreq” on the messaging service largely heralded for its anonymity, however that anonymity doesn’t prolong to youngster pornography.
The firm employs a expertise referred to as PhotoDNA, in keeping with a case doc, that scans photographs traded on by way of distinctive signatures — or a “hash” of every picture — which it compares to signatures of identified youngster pornography images contained in a database.
If a picture seems to be a match, the system information a report back to the corporate’s “Law Enforcement Response Team,” which visually inspects the picture and information a report back to legislation enforcement if the picture is certainly youngster pornography. In Hughes’ case, Kik was alerted to potential youngster pornography related together with his account on July 27, 2019, and so they in flip alerted legislation enforcement two days later.
The hooked up picture within the report depicts a younger woman, roughly 9 to 11 years previous, mendacity on the ground along with her legs propped up on a chair, in keeping with a courtroom affidavit. Police used this as possible trigger to trace Hughes down by his IP tackle after which executed a search warrant on his Union Square townhome the morning of Oct. 13, 2020.
There, investigators discovered a 1-terabyte arduous drive that contained not less than 19 digital information — 10 nonetheless photographs and 9 movies — depicting youngster pornography, in keeping with the affidavit. All of the information depicted the identical little woman performing sexual acts or poses in a baby’s room with fanciful childhood decorations.
Subsequent thorough examination of Hughes’ digital gadgets discovered greater than 2,200 photographs and about 68 movies of kid porn, in keeping with the feds.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”