Wellington Man Sentenced to Nine Years for Transportation, Possession and Distribution of Child Pornography

 William Schaffer amassed more than 2,000 images and videos of child pornography

Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan announced that William D. Schaffer, 53, of Wellington, was sentenced today to nine years imprisonment and five years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan.  Schaffer previously pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography, possession of child pornography and receipt and distribution of visual depictions of real minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. 

As set out in court documents, law enforcement officers with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant at the residence belonging to Schaffer on June 30, 2020, after receiving information from Yahoo! that an email address associated with Schaffer had been used to upload images of child pornography.  Upon entering the residence, law enforcement officers encountered Schaffer and located his laptop, which was, at the time, displaying two images of child pornography.   

After searching the rest of the residence, law enforcement officers seized numerous laptop computers, hard drives and iPhone devices belonging to Schaffer.  A forensic search of the devices found in the residence and online accounts belonging to Schaffer showed that he had amassed a collection of 2,267 images and 257 videos of child pornography.  In addition, investigators determined that Schaffer had used a mobile messaging application to trade images of child pornography with others and amassed a large collection in a cloud storage account.  

This investigation was conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations.  This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol M. Skutnik.