Lakewood Man With 36,000 Child Porn Images Gets 6-Year Jail Term

TRENTON, NJ – A Lakewood man who had more than 36,000 videos and photos of child pornography, one of the largest collections ever seized in New Jersey, has been sentenced to six years in prison, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said Wednesday.

Anthony White, 31, of Lakewood, was one of 40 men arrested in 2016 in "Operation Statewide," a child pornography sweep by the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which includes the New Jersey State Police, Division of Criminal Justice, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, and numerous state, county and local law enforcement agencies.

White pleaded guilty March 6 to second-degree charges of distributing child pornography and attempting to manufacture child pornography, Grewal's office said. In pleading guilty, White admitted using file-sharing software to make child pornography readily available for any other user to download from a shared folder on his computer. He also admitted that he tried to reproduce images of child pornography that he previously downloaded, Grewal's office said.

White was identified as a source of child pornography after a New Jersey State Police detective who was hile monitoring a peer-to-peer file-sharing network popular with sex offenders downloaded 38 videos and images of child pornography from a shared folder at a computer IP address later traced to White.

White was arrested on July 20, 2016, when members of the NJSP Ditgital Technology Investigations Unit and TEAMS Unit executed a search warrant at his home and seized computer devices, including a desktop computer.

A forensic preview of the devices revealed over 36,000 videos and images of child pornography, Grewal's office said, one of the largest collections of child pornography ever seized by law enforcement in New Jersey.

Superior Court Judge Linda Baxter in Ocean County additionally sentenced White to three years of parole ineligibility, and he will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law and will be subject to parole supervision for life.

"We are working hard through our proactive online investigations to banish the offensive notion that viewing child pornography is somehow a victimless crime," Grewal said. "Tens of thousands of children were cruelly abused to create the videos and images in White’s collection, and he exploited and re-victimized those children by his actions."

"By sending defendants like White to prison, we deliver the message that possessing and distributing child pornography are very serious crimes – crimes that create a market for the terrible abuse of innocent children," said Director Veronica Allende of the Division of Criminal Justice.

"People like Anthony White care more about getting caught than they do about the innocent children who are subjected to the horrific abuses portrayed in the videos they willingly share on the internet," said Col. Patrick Callahan of the New Jersey State Police.

Grewal commended the detectives of the New Jersey State Police DTIU and members of the other agencies in the New Jersey ICAC Task Force who conducted Operation Statewide, as well as the attorneys who participated in the investigations and are prosecuting the resulting cases.

Anyone with information about distribution of child pornography on the internet – or about suspected improper contact by unknown persons communicating with children via the internet or possible exploitation or sexual abuse of children – is urged to contact the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Tipline at 888-648-6007.

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Anthony White photo provided by New Jersey Attorney General's Office