LIC man booked on 3,000+ child porn charges
Prosecutors say he downloaded cache of sex abuse images and videos over several months
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
A Long Island City
man has been arrested
for allegedly promoting a
sexual performance and
sharing thousands of photos
and videos of children being
sexually abused by adults,
prosecutors announced on
March 28.
Dodelyn Vertilus, 40,
was arraigned on March 27
on 983 counts of promoting
a sexual performance
by a child as a sexually
motivated felony and 2,218
counts of possessing a
sexual performance by a
child. He is currently being
held on $50,000 cash bail and
is due to return to court on
June 27.
If convicted, Vertilus
faces up to seven years
in prison.
“The defendant in this
case is alleged to have
accumulated a vile collection
of children being sexually
abused by adults,” said Chief
Assistant John M. Ryan. “The
photos and videos are in fact
crime scene images where
youngsters are violated in
the most horrific ways. This
defendant allegedly kept the
demand for these computer
files going by collecting and
sharing this content.”
According to charges,
on July 18, 2017, a New York
State Police investigator
was using law enforcement
software designed to search
and identify individuals,
via their Internet Protocol
address, who are offering
to distribute child sexual
abuse material. The software
detected that an IP address
that allegedly belonged to an
internet account at Vertilus’s
home had been sharing files
on a peer to peer network.
After establishing a
direct connection with the
computer, the investigator
found that between July 18,
2017, and Sept. 13, 2017, the
IP address had downloaded a
total of 983 images and videos,
all of which depicted child
sexual abuse, on seventeen
separate occasions. The
files had titles such as “Gold
3yo” and depicted children
as young as three-years-old
being sexually abused by
adult men or being forced to
Photo via Getty Images
pose in a lewd manner.
Charges say that on Oct.
6, 2017, police executed a
court-authorized search
warrant of Vertilus’s house
and recovered numerous
electronic devices. A
forensic analysis allegedly
found that Vertilus had a
total of photo and video 2,218
files on on his laptop, his
cell phone and seven thumb
drives which all contained
child sexual abuse material.
The collection allegedly
depicted children under 12
years old being sexually
abused by adults.
Vertilus allegedly
told police, in sum and
circumstance, that “I have
child pornography on the
computer and I downloaded
it to view it.”
The material in Vertilus’s
alleged collection will
be sent to the National Center
for Missing and Exploited
Children Child Victim
Identification Program
to ascertain which of the
children in this material
have been identified and
saved by law enforcement.
Reach reporter Emily
Davenport by e-mail at
edavenport@qns.com or by
calling 718-224-5863, ext. 236.
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