Camp Counselor Accused of Child Porn Reaches Plea Deal

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI — Matthew David Kuppe, the West Bloomfield man accused of taking nude photographs of boys at a Jewish summer camp last year, has reached a plea deal in federal court on federal pornography charges, according to media reports.

Kuppe’s plea hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Avern Cohn is Aug. 4.

The terms of the plea deal, rumored to be in the works since last winter, weren’t immediately clear, Gina Balayla, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, told The Detroit News.

• NEWSLETTER & REAL-TIME NEWS ALERTS: Get the Top Michigan Headlines from Patch Editor Beth Dalbey and CONNECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

It’s also unclear how the plea might affect sentencing. The charges against Kuppe — which include production, distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography — are punishable by up to 20 years in a federal prison.

The families of the victims have been notified of the plea agreement as required by the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, Balayla said.

Kuppe, 22, is accused of using his cellphone on Aug. 5, 2015, to take nine sexually explicit pictures of a 5-year-old boy in the locker room of the Jewish Community Center, where he was a camp counselor, and then uploading them to a folder marked “Jewish boys” on a sharing website based in Russia.

He has been free on bond since just before Thanksgiving, when he was released from federal custody to his parents. Cohn required him to wear a GPS tether but said at the time that Kuppe and his parents’ lives had been “upended” by the investigation and charges, that Kuppe wasn’t dangerous and that he deserved the presumption of innocence.

Parents of children whose pictures were uploaded to the sharing site blasted Cohn for sympathizing with the defendant and his family instead of the victims and theirs.

In a statement, they said Kuppe’s release “diminished the profoundness” of his alleged crimes.

“While Matt Kuppe is home enjoying Thanksgiving dinner and welcoming a new year in comfort, our families are seeking the service of professional therapists to help us understand what may be going on in the boys' heads,” the parents wrote. “This devastating incident has forever changed our lives and we will not know for quite some time what impact this will have on our children. Just because you can't see the damage doesn't mean it is not there.”

Kuppe was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security authorities last August when photographs on the Russian sharing website were tracked to Kuppe's IP address, according to court records. He also had allegedly chatted online with an undercover officer on a public photo-sharing website about his sexual fantasies involving young boys.

Cohn has yet to rule on motions by Kuppe’s attorney, Walter Piszczatowski, to suppress certain evidence and statements he argues were improperly obtained by authorities.