News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
May 15, 2008
Middletown man is sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for producing and possessing child pornography
A federal judge today sentenced Barry Zurybida, 51, of Middletown, to 220 months in federal prison for producing and possessing child pornography.
United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced the sentence, which Senior U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres imposed in U.S. District Court, Providence.
FBI agents and Middletown Police officers arrested Zurybida at his home last June. In December, he pleaded guilty to three federal charges: two counts of photographing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and one count of possessing child pornography.
At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Terrence P. Donnelly said the government could prove that, between September 2005 and early 2007, Zurybida occasionally took care of two girls between the ages of four and seven. In January 2007, the girls revealed that Zurybida had photographed them after directing them to expose their genitals.
In June, FBI agents and Middletown Police executed a search warrant at Zurybida’s house, and seized a computer and a digital camera. Subsequent investigation by the FBI’s Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART) determined that the computer’s hard drive contained sexually explicit images of the girls, and that data in the image files linked them to the camera seized in Zurybida’s house. The hard drive also contained child pornography not produced by Zurybida.
The victims’ mother addressed the Court today before Judge Torres sentenced Zurybida. “For my daughters, their innocence is gone,” she told Judge Torres, “never to come back, regardless of the amount of therapy sessions we go through. Innocence – purity – can never return. It’s gone.”
The 220-month sentence that Judge Torres imposed is about three years longer than the minimum required by federal law for Zurybida’s offenses. When he pleaded guilty in December, Zurybida admitted that he had also touched the girls sexually, a factor that enhanced his sentence under federal guidelines.
Judge Torres also imposed lifetime court supervision on Zurybida after his release from prison, and set conditions prohibiting his interaction with children and use of the Internet.
State child molestation charges are also pending against Zurybida.
Zurybida’s address is not part of the court record.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Donnelly prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative against sexual exploitation of children. He prosecuted the case in conjunction with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office.
Contact: 401-709-5032 Thomas.connell@usdoj.gov