A West New York man was charged with producing and possessing images of child sexual abuse, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger announced.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Julio Albery Nunez, 27, of West New York, is charged by complaint with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography.
He was arrested on Monday, May 20th and made his initial appearance the following day before U.S. Magistrate Judge José R. Almonte in Newark federal court before being detained.
Beginning in December 2022 law enforcement began investigating Nunez for involvement with child pornography on various online and dark-web platforms.
More recently, Nunez began using an online gaming platform to contact a minor victim and represented to that victim that he was a teenage girl.
Nunez requested and received videos constituting child sexual abuse that depicted the minor. Law enforcement searched Nunez’s home on the morning of May 20th.
The charge of production of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison and a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The charge of possession of child exploitation material carries a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison, and a $250,000 fine.
Sellinger credited FBI Newark’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy in Newark, with the investigation leading to the charges.
He also thanked the West New York Police Department and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
This 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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children as well as to identify and rescue victims.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Taj Moore and Rebecca Sussman of the OCDETF/Narcotics Unit in Newark.
