Ocean County Man Sentenced to 180 Months in Prison for Receiving and Distributing Child Pornography

TRENTON, N.J. – An Ocean County, New Jersey man was sentenced to 180 months in prison for receiving and distributing child pornography, U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced.

Christopher Budelman, 37, Brick, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi to an information charging him with two counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography. Judge Quraishi imposed the sentence in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

In or around June 2022, while communicating via an online video chat site, Budelman enticed two minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct while he sexually pleasured himself. Budelman recorded and saved those video chats on his computer. Additionally, from in or around September 2021 to in or around June 2022, Budelman used two Kik Messenger accounts to send images and videos containing child pornography, including images and videos depicting prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, to others.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Quraishi sentenced Budelman to 10 years of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney Habba credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, Atlantic City, New Jersey, under the direction of Special-Agent-in-Charge Ricky J. Patel in Newark; the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office High Tech Crime Unit, under the direction of Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer; New Jersey State Police, under the direction of Superintendent Col. Patrick J. Callahan; and Brick Township Police Department, under the direction of Chief David Forrester, with the investigation leading to this sentencing.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Super Pitts of the Criminal Division in Trenton.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/psc.

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Defense counsel: John Bruno, Jr., Esq.