20-Year-Old Child Sex Secret Revealed In Porn Sweep

CARMEL, NY — A Putnam County man arrested in a massive child porn sweep in 2014 turned out to have shared a video from a sex act he performed with a 12-year-old girl when he was 20. And in addition to having thousands of child porn files, he was also secretly filming a 10-year-old in the bathroom.

Wednesday, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that John Asmodeo was sentenced to 15 years in prison for engaging in, and videotaping, sexual activity with a minor in the fall of 2003. The sentence also includes 10 years of supervised release.

Asmodeo, 34, had pleaded guilty on Oct. 23, 2017, before U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti, who also imposed the sentence.

“This case underlines the urgent need for law enforcement to continue its efforts to protect children from those who prey on them," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. "We will continue to use every tool available to law enforcement to prosecute and punish those who sexually exploit children.”

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

In the fall of 2003, when Asmodeo was 20, he engaged in sexual intercourse with a then 12 year-old girl and used a camera to record the sexual activity. He took photographs as well as videos of the sexual intercourse. The camera used to create the video files was a Fujifilm Finepix 3800, a camera manufactured in Japan.

He later copied the video files onto a compact disk he labeled “Girls.” He gave that “Girls” disk to a third party in 2005. In 2016, that third party provided the “Girls” disk to law enforcement.

In April 2014, Asmodeo's residence in Putnam County came to the attention of Homeland Security Investigations because it appeared that an Internet Protocol address connected to that residence was making child pornography available via a peer-to-peer file sharing network. A search warrant was executed, resulting in the seizure of numerous computers.

The forensic examination of these items revealed thousands of sexually explicit images of prepubescent children. The examination also revealed that, on various dates in 2013, ASMODEO used a hidden camera to videotape a 10-year-old girl undressing in his bathroom.

In announcing the sentence, Judge Briccetti underscored that the defendant’s conduct was “appalling” and “extraordinarily harmful to the victim.”

In addition to the prison term, ASMODEO, 34, of Carmel, New York, was sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.

Berman praised the efforts of Homeland Security Investigations, the Carmel Police Department, and the Putnam County District Attorney’s Office in connection with the investigation.

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