Bristol Man Sentenced to Prison for Child Porn

The Bristol man who pleaded guilty to charges of child porn possession and distribution in April was sentenced Tuesday to five years in federal prison and three years of supervised release.

Mathew S. Antignano, 32, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. following his April 10 guilty plea.

The charges stemmed from a 2014 investigation by members of the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, who seized a computer and other digital media from his home and discovered 7,750 images and 180 videos depicting child pornography.

Police detected his IP address being used to share numerous files, according to court records. It didn’t take long for investigators to identify him as the owner of the IP address.

It was a Coventry police detective assigned to the task force looking into activity on a peer-to-peer file sharing network who detected Antignano’s IP address.

Antignano has been held since his arrest, which came shortly after the raid on his Bristol home last July.

Antignano, with a last-known address of 533 Metacom Ave., was employed by Looking Upwards, a MIddletown nonprofit that serves people with disabilities. Antignano did not put him in direct contact with children, police said.