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Press Release
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Michael Gullinese, age 48, of Albany, New York, was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for distributing, receiving, and possessing child pornography.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and Janelle M. Miller, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As part of his guilty plea, Gullinese admitted that between January 23, 2017 and his arrest on March 14, 2017, he used his cell phone to send and receive images of child pornography over the Kik messaging application. Gullinese saved to his phone approximately 600 image files and 150 video files of child pornography, some depicting children as young as infants.
Gullinese has a 2010 federal child pornography conviction. He was serving a life term of supervised release at the time of his arrest, having been released from prison in August 2014.
Senior United States District Judge Norman A. Mordue sentenced Gullinese to a 15-year term of imprisonment on Gullinese’s guilty plea to the 2017 child pornography offenses, to be followed by an additional 5-year term of imprisonment for violating the terms of his supervised release. Judge Mordue also imposed a lifetime term of supervised release, to begin when Gullinese is released from prison, and ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $3,000.
This case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph A. Giovannetti.
This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood. Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc.