FORMER CORRECTIONS OFFICER SENTENCED TO 84 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR DISTRIBUTING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

TRENTON, N.J. – An Ocean County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 84 months in prison for distributing images and videos of child sexual abuse, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.

Michael A. Ruggiero, 38, of Lacey Township, New Jersey, a former corrections officer, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan to an information charging him with one count of distribution of child pornography. Judge Sheridan imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

From April 16, 2016, to April 19, 2016, Ruggiero used a mobile chat application to distribute and share over the internet images and videos of child sexual abuse. Some of the images and videos were of prepubescent children or children who had not attained the age of 12. Ruggiero also received over the same mobile chat application other images and videos of child sexual abuse, and he possessed additional depictions of child sexual abuse on his cellular telephone at the time of his arrest in June 2017.

In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Sheridan sentenced Ruggiero to five years of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Brian A. Michael; inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction of Postal Inspector in Charge Daniel B. Brubaker, Philadelphia Division; and members of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office under the direction of Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisa T. Wiygul of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Trenton.