Syracuse Man Sentenced to 25 Years for Distributing, Receiving and Transporting Child Pornography and Violating Supervised Release

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Christopher Martinelli, 40, of Syracuse, was sentenced to serve a total of twenty‑five years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for distributing, receiving, and transporting child pornography and violating supervised release.  The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith; James N. Hendricks, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and New York State Police Acting Superintendent Keith Corlett.

As part of his guilty plea, Martinelli admitted to knowingly exchanging sexually explicit photographs with a fourteen-year-old girl over the Internet, as well as trading child pornography online while on supervised release from a prior federal felony conviction. That prior conviction from January 14, 2011 was for Martinelli’s failure to register as a sex offender, for which he was sentenced to serve 14 months imprisonment, to be followed by a ten-year term of supervised release. Martinelli was required to register as a sex offender based upon a child pornography adjudication under the Uniform Code of Military Justice that was imposed while he was serving in the U.S. military.

In the current case, Chief United States District Court Judge Glenn T. Suddaby sentenced Martinelli to serve 240 months’ imprisonment for his child pornography crimes and 5 years’ imprisonment for violating the conditions of his supervised release by committing those crimes.  Judge Suddaby ordered that the terms of imprisonment be served consecutively, for a total of twenty‑five years’ imprisonment.

This case was investigated by the United States Probation Office, the New York State Police Major Crimes Unit, and the FBI Syracuse Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, a federal task force that investigates cases involving the sexual exploitation of children.  The task force consists of FBI Special Agents and New York State Police Investigators from Troop D, Bureau of Criminal Investigation.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carina H. Schoenberger.

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.