Hampstead Man Matthew Curtis Pleads Guilty To Federal Charge For Possession Of Child Pornography

HAMPSTEAD, Md. (WJZ) — A 24-year-old Hampstead antheral pleaded blameworthy connected Tuesday to a national complaint of possession of kid pornography, materials helium acquired portion connected probation aft a condemnation of the aforesaid transgression successful the Circuit Court of Carroll County.

Matthew Curtis admitted that, betwixt November 2019 and May 2020, helium downloaded “depictions of prepubescent minors engaging successful sexually explicit conduct” and distributed them connected an online messaging app, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

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An probe revealed that Curtis would spell into online chatrooms and unreal to beryllium the parent of an babe oregon toddler to sermon the intersexual maltreatment of his purported children. In immoderate instances, different users expressed their tendency to maltreatment those children and discussed past instances of abuse, national prosecutors said.

In March 2020, an online server supplier flagged 22 files of suspected kid pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the plea agreement.

An IP code and email code associated with Curtis were utilized to entree the server, national prosecutors said.

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In May 2020, authorities searched Curtis’ location and recovered 429 images and 129 videos of kid pornography.

Curtis was convicted of possession of kid pornography successful the Circuit Court of Carroll County successful 2017 and sentenced to 1 twelvemonth and six months successful situation and 3 years of probation, national prosecutors said.

If the tribunal accepts Curtis’ blameworthy plea astatine a sentencing proceeding scheduled for Oct. 22. He volition beryllium sentenced to 10 years successful national prison.

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Upon release, Curtis indispensable proceed to registry arsenic a enactment offender.

CBS Baltimore Staff