By Alexander Dworkowitz
A Flushing father has been charged with sending pornographic pictures of himself to an undercover detective he believed was a 13-year-old girl, the Queens district attorney said this week.
Brian Oswald, 45, was arrested at his home in Pomonok Houses in Flushing on May 22 when police with the Computer Investigation and Technology Unit executed a search warrant, Queens DA Richard Brown said.
“According to the charges, the defendants preyed upon someone who he believed was a teenage girl for his own sexual gratification,” Brown said.
Oswald is a chief engineer at Newark Liberty International Airport, where he supervises maintenance workers, the district attorney said. He is married and the father of two college-age children, said his attorney Jeffrey Lewisohn.
He faces up to four years in prison if convicted, the district attorney said.
From mid-March to mid-May, Oswald repeatedly communicated with the detective's screen name via America Online, the district attorney said.
Oswald sent the officer, whom he believed to be 13, Web camera images of himself masturbating and instructions describing how naked pictures could be sent to him, the district attorney said.
Oswald also asked about the detective's sexual development, telling the officer not to tell anyone of their online chatting, the district attorney said.
In a written statement, Oswald admitted he exposed himself on a Web camera and that he thought he was chatting with a teenager, the district attorney said.
Lewisohn, however, questioned whether all the evidence could be used against his client.
“The higher courts have certainly frowned upon these undercover types of operations,” he said.
Bail was set at a $50,000 bond and $25,000 in cash. Lewisohn said Oswald's wife hoped to make bail Tuesday evening, adding his children “were standing behind him.”
Lewisohn called the charges “an aberration” in Oswald's life.
“He has nothing in his background, nothing at all,” he said.
He is scheduled to appear in front of State Supreme Court Judge Stephen Knopf again June 9.
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300 Ext. 141.
