Long Island Teacher Sentenced For Distributing Child Pornography

John Capuano, a former New York City school guidance counselor and teachers’ union representative from Valley Stream, was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release following his March 2016 guilty plea to child pornography charges. Capuano must also register as a sex offender, and after his release, he will not be allowed unsupervised contact with minors.

"As a school guidance counselor and educator, Capuano had a mandatory obligation in New York State to report child abuse," Acting United States Attorney Bridget Rohde said. "Instead, he victimized children by sharing images of their rape and abuse with others online. Protection of our children remains a top priority of this office, and we will continue to vigorously prosecute such offenses."

According to prosecutors, in April 2015, an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent, as part of an ongoing effort to locate individuals sharing child pornography, found child pornography images and videos involving children as young as 3 years old which had been posted by Capuano to a chat room in a publicly available Internet application. After tracing location information for the account used to post the images, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant on May 28, 2015 at Capuano’s home in Valley Stream.

During the search, Capuano spoke with officers following a waiver of his Miranda rights and admitted that he used the application to trade child pornography and posted the images located by the undercover agent. Capuano also identified his personal telephone and his work telephone as a teachers’ union representative as devices he used to access these materials. Capuano was arrested at that time and remains incarcerated.

The prosecution of Capuano was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices, 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, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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