Oneida County Man Sentenced for Possessing Child Pornography

James Winston III, age 28, of Utica, New York, was sentenced yesterday to 60 months in federal prison for possession of child pornography announced First Assistant United States Attorney John A. Sarcone III and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

As part of his guilty plea in the case, Winston previously admitted that in March of 2025, several files of child pornography were uploaded to a cloud storage account under his control. Thereafter, on December 10, 2025, Winston was found in possession of two cell phones on which he possessed additional child pornography files including some that depicted the sexual abuse of children as young as three years old.

First Assistant United States Attorney John A. Sarcone III stated: “Any person disturbed enough to seek out and accumulate images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children deserves years of incarceration. This defendant’s conduct has landed him right where he belongs, in a prison cell.”

“Mr. Winston was in possession of multiple devices containing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM )–some depicting infant victims,” said Craig Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Albany Field Office. “Those depraved actions have just sent him to federal prison for five years. Possessing CSAM perpetuates the abuse of the victims, and the FBI will continue to dedicate every resource needed to investigate and hold these predators accountable for harming our children.”

In addition to the term of imprisonment imposed, U.S. District Judge, Anthony J. Brindisi, also imposed a 10-year term of supervision which will begin after Winston is released from prison at which time Winston will also be required to register as a sex offender.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Albany Division Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force and the New York State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrian S. LaRochelle prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood.

Project Safe Childhood is a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. 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.