By Jeff Lipton
Robert S. Weinstein, 44, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert to the 20-year prison term plus lifetime supervised release and continued sex offender registration.
The federal case against Weinstein was built in January 2005, when FBI agents confiscated a computer from an individual in Charlotte, N.C., containing child pornography sent by Weinstein, authorities said. The following month, FBI agents in New York executed a search warrant at Weinstein¹s home and seized a laptop computer that contained 654 still images and 60 video files of child pornography depicting victims ranging from infants to 14-year-olds. At the time, Weinstein admitted that he traded images of child pornography and downloaded those images from Web sites, officials said.
He pleaded guilty on June 2, 2006, to three counts of distribution and seven counts of possession of child pornography.
Weinstein was previously convicted in 1992 in Nassau County for first-degree attempted sexual abuse after an incident involving a 10-year-old boy in an East Rockaway park, and was sentenced to six months in jail, five years¹ probation and sex offender registration. At the time of his arrest, Weinstein was a teacher and choir director in the East Meadow School District.
Less than three months after completing his term of probation, in September 1998, the former teacher was arrested and convicted in Toronto, Canada, on a charge of procuring illicit sex after soliciting a 14-year-old boy. He was sentenced to five months in jail on that conviction.
³Trafficking in child pornography subjects the children in these images to continuing degradation and encourages abusers to seek new victims,² said U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf. ³We are determined to protect children by aggressively investigating and prosecuting child pornography offenders.²
She thanked the FBI and the Project Safe Childhood Task Force for their work on the case.
Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, was created in February 2006 by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to protect children from on-line exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States attorneys¹ offices, Project Safe Childhood combines federal, state, and local resources to better investigate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.
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