Framingham Man Sentenced for Child Pornography Offenses

BOSTON – A Framingham man was sentenced yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with child pornography offenses.

Stephen John Hallissey, 38, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to 11 years in prison and 10 years of supervised release.  In November 2015, Hallissey pleaded guilty to possession and receipt of child pornography.

Hallissey was arrested and charged in March 2015 after federal agents executed a search warrant at his home and found over 450,000 images of child pornography on his computer.    Many of the images depicted very young children being raped and sexually assaulted.  Hallissey also admitted to repeatedly sexually assaulting two young girls, aged two and four, in California a number of years ago.    In email messages Hallissey sent to other child pornography collectors, Hallissey said: “I LOVE hurting kids with sex (rape).”    In another message, Hallissey wrote that his favorite age for a victim was two years old. 

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today. 

The case was investigated by the FBI's Boston Child Exploitation Task Force (CETF), which is comprised of members from the FBI, the Boston Police Department’s Child Abuse and Human Trafficking Units, the Massachusetts State Police, the Massachusetts Department of Correction, the Arlington, Malden and Norwood Police Departments, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Tobin of Ortiz’s Major Crimes Unit. 

The case is brought as part of Project Safe Childhood.  In 2006, the Department of Justice created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/