Onondaga County Man Sentenced on Sexual Exploitation Conviction

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Martin Nicholson, age 32, of Geddes, New York, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Hon. Thomas J. McAvoy to serve 15 years in federal prison for willfully causing the Sexual Exploitation of a Child, announced United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith, Thomas F. Relford, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and New York State Police Superintendent Keith Corlett.

Nicholson, a former local track coach, pled guilty to the offense in October 2019, admitting that sometime between 2012 and 2015 he threatened to cut off a relationship he was having with a minor, unless that minor produced and sent him sexually explicit images of another child, who was under the age of 14.  Nicholson admitted that he received the requested images, and sent them to other users over the Internet.  The images produced at Nicholson’s direction were recovered from his residence following a search warrant conducted there in 2018 after Nicholson was discovered trading child pornography over Twitter.  

After serving his 15-year sentence, Nicholson will be required to serve 15 years on supervised release, and will be required to register as a sex offender.  He was also ordered to pay a $5,000 assessment under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, and has agreed to pay restitution to his victims.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)-Syracuse Resident Agency, and the New York State Police as a part of the Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, assisted by the Wallie Howard Jr. Center for Forensic Sciences, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa M. Fletcher, Project Safe Childhood Coordinator for the Northern District of New York. 

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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.