Downloaded Over 1,500 Images
A Woodside man awaits sentencing after pleading guilty last Friday, July 25, to child pornography possession charges, law enforcement officials announced.
Winston Baker, 26, of 30th Avenue entered a guilty plea to promoting a sexual performance by a child and endangering the welfare of a child. At sentencing, set for late September, Baker faces from two to six years in prison, Brown stated.
According to information obtained from the District Attorney’s office, Baker appeared before Queens County Criminal Court Judge Dorothy Chinn-Brandt last Friday. Following the April 2013 arrest on promoting a sexual performance charge, he was released on $15,000 bail, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown stated.
Baker was reportedly collared again in June of that year on a child endangerment and was released after posting $20,000 bail, Brown said. According to Brown, Baker also admitted during the investigation to improperly touching a nine-year-old female relative.
Baker’s April arrest came after police searched his home and performed a forensic analysis of his computer, Brown said. At the time of the search, his computer was on, and signed onto a peer to peer file sharing network, according to police.
Investigators found approximately 1,629 inappropriate images of minors on his desktop, Brown stated.
“The Internet has replaced the proverbial back alley as the place where purveyors of child pornography gather to share their vile and disturbing videos and photographs of young children being sexually abused,” Brown said. “It is important for the public to remember that the images being exchanged are, for all intents and purposes, crime scene photos as they depict real children being cruelly victimized both physically and emotionally and who will have to carry the painful memory of that which occurred to them for the rest of their lives.”
The investigation was conducted by the New York City Police Department’s Vice Enforcement Division and the Queens Child Abuse Squad
The prosecution is being conducted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Kateri A. Gasper, of District Attorney Brown’s Computer Crimes Unit, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Anthony M. Communiello, bureau chief of the District Attorney’s Special Proceedings Bureau, and Oscar W. Ruiz, deputy bureau chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.
