United States Attorney Southern District of New York
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 21, 2008		CONTACT: U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE YUSILL SCRIBNER,REBEKAH CARMICHAEL PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE

 MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that LAURENCE F. GORDON, 46, was sentenced to 120 months in prison today for receiving child pornography. The sentence was imposed by United States District Judge KIMBA M. WOOD in Manhattan federal court. GORDON pleaded guilty on October 12, 2007, three days into his jury trial, to receiving child pornography over the internet. According to documents filed in this case, statements made during GORDON's guilty plea and today’s proceeding, and the evidence at trial:

From March 2005 until November 9, 2005, GORDON downloaded hundreds of images and dozens of videos of child pornography to his office computer in Manhattan -- depicting the sexual abuse and exploitation of children -- from numerous locations on the Internet. These depictions included graphic files which used "rape," "bondage," "preteen," "preteen hardcore," "pedofilia," "PTHC," "lolita," and other sexually explicit terms in their titles.

GORDON joined and paid for a membership to a child pornography website called "Hardcore" and "PedoLovers 2004-2005" (collectively, "Hardcore"), which contained thousands of images and videos of child pornography, and from which he downloaded numerous child pornography videos. GORDON also searched for child pornography using search engines and peer-to-peer software.

On November 9, 2005, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") visited the defendant at his midtown Manhattan office as part of a child pornography investigation into members of Hardcore. While the FBI was interviewing a coworker, GORDON attempted to delete the images and videos of child pornography that he had downloaded and saved on his office computer. The FBI successfully recovered those images and files.

In addition to the prison term, GORDON was sentenced to five years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine. In sentencing GORDON, Judge WOOD stated, “...the receipt of child pornography is an extraordinarily serious offense because of the fact that many children are physically assaulted in order for the videos and images to be made. And then those who purvey that pornography make money from doing so.” She added that “both Congress and the Sentencing Commission view the offense as deserving a long sentence.”

Mr. GARCIA praised the work of the FBI and the Suffolk County Police Department in this case.

Assistant United States Attorneys BENJAMIN A. NAFTALIS and JOSHUA A. GOLDBERG are in charge of the prosecution.

08-122

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