An Ontario County man will spend the next twenty years in prison.
Eric Passalacqua was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Rochester Wednesday on receipt and distribution of child pornography convictions. The 37-year-old Phelps man was also sentenced to 15 years of supervised release and must pay $21,000 in restitution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle P. Rossi, who handled the case, stated that on January 20th of this year, the FBI in Rochester received information from the FBI in Anchorage, Alaska, that an individual located in Phelps may have been responsible for exchanging child pornography with an individual in Alaska. Subsequent investigation determined that the individual was Passalacqua. Four days later a search warrant was executed at Passalacqua’s residence. A forensic examination of his phone recovered over 600 images of child pornography, including images that Passalacqua produced depicting a minor victim. Passalacqua also admitted to producing images of another minor victim.
The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation Human Trafficking Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Matthew Miraglia, and the Anchorage Office of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Antony A. Jung.
