Press Release
Utica Man Pleads Guilty to Receipt and Possession of Child Pornography
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of New York
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – John Seiselmyer, age 50, of Utica, New York, pled guilty today before Chief United States District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby to one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman, Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and New York State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen.
Seiselmyer, who remains detained pending his sentencing scheduled for August 2, 2022, faces at least 15 years in prison and up to 60 years imprisonment on the charges. The Court will also impose a term of supervised release of between 5 years and life. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors.
As part of his guilty plea, Seiselmyer, admitted that from February 2020 to June 2020 he used a laptop computer to download child pornography over the internet using peer-to-peer file sharing software. A subsequent search of Seiselmyer’s apartment revealed that he was in possession of over 9,000 images and 955 video files depicting child pornography. Seiselmyer is a registered sex offender who was convicted in 2007 of Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree involving a victim who was less than 11 years old.
Seiselmyer’s case was investigated by the FBI Syracuse Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, comprised of FBI Special Agents and Investigators of the New York State Police, Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), with assistance from the Utica Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey J. L. Brown as a part of Project Safe Childhood.
Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorney’s offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), and is designed to marshal 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.
Updated April 5, 2022
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Project Safe Childhood
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