• You must be logged in to see or use the Shoutbox. Besides, if you haven't registered, you really should. It's quick and it will make your life a little better. Trust me. So just register and make yourself at home with like-minded individuals who share either your morbid curiousity or sense of gallows humor.

Unamused Cat

Veteran Member
med.jpg


http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=4123920

ALEM, Mass. — Prosecutors said Matthew Grasso had “upwards of 150,000 images of child pornographyâ€￾ and used the Internet to distribute some of them.

Assistant District Attorney Marcia Slingerland said the case against the 20-year-old Grasso, who lives with his parents at 73 Thornton St., Lawrence, is the biggest child pornography case that state troopers assigned to the Essex County district attorney’s office have ever seen.

“I think it is the largest,â€￾ she said at Grasso’s arraignment in Salem Superior Court yesterday.

Grasso, a 2005 graduate of Haverhill High School, is charged with 17 counts of possession of child pornography and 34 counts of possession of child pornography with intent to disseminate.

http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/local_story_263001642.html
 
1626648513790.png

  • Jul 23, 2008
A Superior Court judge acknowledged he was being lenient when he sentenced a 21-year-old Lawrence man to a four-year sentence in the house of correction after pleading guilty to 51 counts of illegal possession and distribution of child pornography.

The case against Matthew Grasso is believed to be the largest child pornography case ever in Essex County.

Had Grasso been sentenced under maximum guidelines for each criminal count, he faced 765 years in state prison, Judge Howard Whitehead said.

Grasso had no previous criminal record "but obviously has some very serious problems he needs to address," defense attorney Carol Cahill said in court yesterday.

Whitehead said he viewed some of the pornography in the case and found it "literally sick."

"It is abnormal to be attracted to those kinds of images," the judge said.

Whitehead said he based his sentence on Grasso's relative youth. Had he been a decade older, the judge said he may have imposed a harsher sentence.

Grasso is scheduled to serve two consecutive two-year terms in the house of correction, followed by 20 years of probation.

Terms of his probation include that Grasso register as a sex offender, adhere to an 11 p.m. curfew, be subject to GPS monitoring, and that he not leave Massachusetts without the permission of the court. In addition, he may not possess or use a computer, and may not access the Internet with any device, including a cell phone, during his 20 years of probation.

Whitehead further ordered that as a condition of probation, Grasso must undergo sex offender treatment and counseling at the direction of the probation department.

The case was opened after state police received nine "cyber tips" about Grasso distributing pornography online.

On March 6, 2007, armed with a search warrant, troopers found more than 200,000 photos, videos, CDs and DVDs depicting child pornography after they searched Grasso's computer and bedroom. Two, three-ring binders containing laminated pornographic pictures were found underneath his mattress. Thousands more of still images and videos were found on CDs and DVDs stored throughout his room.

"I know it sounds stupid, but I am going to sell them," Grasso initially told state troopers who found the child pornography in his room.

Grasso, with his weeping parents sitting in the courtroom gallery, answered "guilty" 51 times as the charges against him were read aloud in Salem Superior Court.

Grasso started collecting child pornography at age 15 and distributed the pictures, mostly of prepubescent boys, on the Internet.

The judge said he strongly suspects Grasso himself was the victim of sexual abuse, although that was never confirmed in court yesterday. He ordered him to register as a sex offender and undergo sex offender counseling. He said he feared without a "tight rein," Grasso would eventually abuse children in the same manner depicted in the pornography he collected.

Prosecutor Slingerland said child pornography is not a "victimless" offense.

Slingerland said even after his initial arraignment, where he was barred from accessing the Internet from his computer, Grasso, a shipping and receiving clerk, was caught cleaning out an e-mail account using a computer at work.

"The defendant was under a court order not to use the Internet," Slingerland said. But, she added, "he was unable to keep himself from accessing a computer."

"The defendant has already showed he's a poor candidate for rehab," Slingerland said.

The judge told Grasso that if he violates probation in any way during the two decades after his release, he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in state prison.
 
Back
Top