Man Sentenced in Child Pornography Case

BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Patrick Roney, 51, of Warsaw, New York, who was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced to 168 months in prison by Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Maura K. O’Donnell, who handled the case, stated that the defendant possessed computer equipment containing over 600 images of child pornography. Some of the images depicted prepubescent children younger than 12 years of age.

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 Richard W. Kollmar, Acting Special Agent in Charge, and the Wyoming County Sheriff’s Office, under the direction of Sheriff Faris Heimann