Fayetteville resident Stanley R. Tarnowski has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted in federal court of possession of child pornography.
Tarnowski, 58, was convicted of possession of child pornography, was sentenced on Monday to 60 months in prison and five years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Arcara, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward H. White, who handled the case, said that on June 14, 2011, Tarnowski attempted to enter the United States from Canada and was pulled over for a secondary inspection.
Law enforcement officers discovered videos and images of child pornography on Tarnowski’s laptop computer. Further investigation determined the videos and images were transmitted over the Internet through the use of email. Some of the images depicted children younger than 12 years old and contained depictions of violence, White said.
The 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, said U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr.
