Five inmates at a federal prison in New Jersey, the United States, were downloading and watching child pornographic material using smuggled cell phones, while they were behind the bars.
According to the court documents, the five suspects were downloading and swapping videos and photos of children being abused, including toddlers and babies. The inmates allegedly downloaded the illicit material on a cloud and shared the content with each other at the low-security facility at Fort Dix. However, according to the media outlet nbcnews.com, one of the five inmates was a government informant.
“Each housing unit has one corrections officer, and there are lookouts in every stairwell who are able to notify the unit when an officer leaves his or her office within the housing unit,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit. “According to [the prisoner informant], in addition to viewing CP and using cellphones, inmates at FCI Ft. Dix are getting tattoos, cooking alcohol and doing drugs. [He] stated that inmates hide cellphones in light fixtures, jacket liners, closets and under lockers.”
The inmates, all of them serving long sentences related to child pornography, were charged with using cell phones and microSD cards to distribute the images along with selling the photos and videos on federal property, acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick said. The five suspects are scheduled to appear for a trial at the federal court in Camden before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen M. Williams on May 3.
Law enforcement authorities identified Anthony C. Jeffries, a 31-year-old man from Orange, as the ringleader. Jeffries is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence at Fort Dix. According to police information, the suspect maintained a cloud account of the indecent photos and videos, which included “infants and toddlers and depictions of child sexual abuse.” The investigation in the case showed that the 31-year-old transferred a microSD card containing child porn content to a government informant in the prison in November, authorities said. Jeffries allegedly purchased a cell phone for $900 to $1,000, which he rented out to other prisoners for $4 to $10 an hour.
Thanks to the informant, law enforcement authorities identified the other four members of the prison child porn ring. One of them is Brian J. McKay, a 46-year-old from Brookhaven, who is serving a 15-year sentence. He also transferred microSD cards to a government informant in November as well as in February. Jordan T. Allen, 30, of Plain City, serving an 8 1/2-year sentence, received a payment in February by an informant at the prison in exchange for the microSD cards, police information disclosed. Allen told the informant that he was using an “anonymous communication platform” to view and access the images. After knowing this, investigators were sure that the platform the criminals were using was the Tor network and the dark web.
Christopher D. Roffler, a 29-year-old from Virginia Beach, who is serving an 8-year sentence, was also paid by a government informant in November “in exchange for the microSD card that McKay transferred to the informant.” Erik M. Smith, 35, of Iron Mountain, serving a nearly 20-year sentence, also committed the same crime.
According to the court documents, a former Fort Dix inmate wore a wire and recorded some of the criminals discussing which type of images should they download. One of the prisoners said he planned to save the material for use after his release.
“I’ll be honest,” he said, “I have no intention of stopping.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s affidavit detailed how courts had recommended that some of the inmates receive sex offender counseling when they were sentenced. Fort Dix does not have a sex offender treatment program, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website, but the agency could not immediately say if the inmates had received counseling elsewhere.
Since all of the defendants have been convicted before (the punishment they are serving at the moment), the inmates face potential sentences of 15 to 40 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
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