Ocean County Man Gets 5 Years For Trading Child Porn

A Lakehurst man has been sentenced to five years in state prison in the wake of his September 2014 guilty plea to distributing child pornography, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office announced.

Michael R. Allen, 28, of Lakehurst was sentenced Friday by Judge Francis R. Hodgson Jr. in Toms River, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Allen, who pleaded guilty to a second-degree charge, will be subject to Megan’s Law registration upon his release from jail.

Della Fave said the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office began investigating Allen in the spring of 2013. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children notified the New Jersey’s Crimes Against Children Task Force about possible child pornography being distributed, and the state agency notified the prosecutor’s office. The office’s High Tech Crime Unit and the Lakehurst Police Department investigated.

On May 7, 2013, just after sunrise, the investigating agencies, with assistance from the Ocean County Regional SWAT Team, executed a search warrant at Allen’s Maple Street home in Lakehurst, Della Fave said. The search for evidence pertaining to the child pornography distribution resulted in the recovery of 26 items of digital evidence, Allen’s computer, multiple electronic storage devices and more than 5,000 graphic images depicting sexual assault on children. The forensic preview of the computer evidence at the residence by the Ocean County High Tech Crime Unit found Allen to be actively trading images of child pornography with other people on the internet.

He was charged at the time with two counts of second degree distribution of child pornography. Charges were signed by the OCPO High Tech Crime Unit. Assistant Prosecutor Hillary Bryce approved the charges and prosecuted the case.