Tonawanda Man Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography

BUFFALO, N.Y.-- U.S. Attorney Williams J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Anthony F. Amato, Jr., 40, of Tonawanda, N.Y., who was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced to three years in prison and five years supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the case, stated that on December 17, 2007, a search warrant was executed at the defendant's residence. Officers found three videos and 17 images of child pornography on a computer and disks. Amato admitted that he obtained the videos and images over the internet.

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 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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Christopher M. Piehota, Special Agent in Charge and the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Daniel Derenda.  Additional assistance was provided by the Western New York Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, which conducted the forensic analysis of the computer.