N.Y. Police Chief Sentenced for Child Porn

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CN) - Child-pornography possession sent a former police chief from suburban New York to prison for 18 months on Wednesday.

At the time of his January 2014 arrest, Brian Fanelli was in his second month on the job as chief of police for the Mount Pleasant Police Department.

A resident of Mahopac with more than 30 years on the force, a raid of the chief's home found that he had downloaded more than 120 files containing images and videos of child pornography.

Prosecutors said many of the files depicted "graphic sexual abuse of young, prepubescent victims."

While Fanelli was downloading such content using peer-to-peer file-sharing software, he was teaching classes to children about sexual-abuse awareness, prosecutors said.

Because Fanelli kept his porn stash in a shared folder on his computer, undercover federal investigators managed to make three downloads of that content.

Fanelli pleaded guilty to possession of child porn last year before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, and Karas handed down the 56-year-old former chief's sentence Wednesday.

After concluding an 18-month sentence, Fanelli must serve five years of supervised release. He must also forfeit his computer and hard drives, and pay a $100 fee.

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