North Country Man Pleads Guilty to Receipt and Possession of Child Pornography

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Dean Brooks, age 40, of Hammond, New York, pled guilty today to one felony count charging receipt of child pornography and one felony count charging possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and Kevin Kelly, Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). 

As part of his guilty plea, Brooks admitted that he used his Yahoo e-mail account to request and receive seven sexually explicit images from a 14-year old Alabama girl during a two-week period in December 2017.  A subsequent federal search warrant executed at his residence uncovered an additional nine child pornography images that Brooks downloaded from the internet to his cellular telephone.

Brooks remains detained pending his sentencing on August 13, 2020, in Utica, New York. He faces a minimum of five years and up to 20 years of imprisonment for his receipt of child pornography, and up to 20 years of imprisonment for his possession of child pornography. Brooks also faces a fine of up to $250,000.00 per count of conviction, as well as a term of supervised release of between five (5) years and life, and he will be required to register as a sex offender. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors. Sentences of imprisonment may be concurrent or consecutive at the discretion of the Court

Brooks’s case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Baldwin County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Office.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Geoffrey J. L. Brown.

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.