Stratford Man Pleads Guilty To Child Pornography Charges: Feds

STRATFORD, CT — A Stratford man has pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with producing and distributing a “significant amount” of child pornography, according to authorities.

Edward Galpin, 39, pleaded guilty Wednesday to offenses related to the sexual exploitation of multiple children, Acting U.S. Attorney for Connecticut Leonard C Boyle announced.

Galpin was an administrator of a private Kik messaging app chat group that provided a forum for members to “discuss their sexual interest in young children and exchange images and videos of child sexual abuse,” according to officials.

“As a group administrator, Galpin distributed child pornography, requested it from other group members, and removed from the group certain members who did not share child pornography,” officials wrote in a news release. “Galpin possessed and shared a significant amount of child pornography, including images and videos of prepubescent minors and content portraying sadistic and masochistic conduct and the sexual abuse of toddlers.”

The investigation also found that Galpin used Instagram to identify young girls for the purpose of soliciting or producing child pornography, according to officials.

“In one instance, Galpin arranged to meet with a 17-year-old girl, picked her up at her house, and engaged in sexually explicit conduct with her,” the news release states. “Galpin recorded the sexual encounter and then shared images and videos on Kik. In another instance, Galpin identified a 15-year-old girl via Instagram and enticed her to send him sexually explicit images of herself. The victim did so using Instagram’s ‘self-destruct’ feature, which automatically deletes an image after a short time. However, Galpin recorded video of his conversation with the victim so he could retain the images he received. In a third instance, Galpin contacted an eighth-grade girl via Instagram direct message and subsequently received from her a video and other images of her engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”

Authorities said Galpin also used spy cameras to record videos of women and girls while they were undressing. He then distributed the videos, including video of a minor girl, via Kik, according to authorities.

In June 2020, Galpin contacted a Kik account operated by an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.

Galpin asked the “girl” when her “mom” would be away from home and arranged to meet the “girl” at a coffee shop in Connecticut, officials said. Then on June 25, after Galpin arrived at the scheduled time and place, law enforcement approached him and seized his iPhone. He was arrested later that day and has been detained since his arrest, according to officials.

Galpin was originally charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the case was then transferred to the District of Connecticut.

Galpin pleaded guilty to two counts of production of child pornography, an offense that carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 15 years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years on each count, and two counts of distribution of child pornography, an offense that carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years on each count.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2.

The prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit here.

To report cases of child exploitation, visit here.