A Calverton man and three other people are facing federal child pornography charges under an indictment filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Central Islip..
Taylor Pick, 35, of Calverton is charged with three counts of
Sexual Exploitation of a Child, a federal felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The indictment says Pick “did knowingly and intentionally employ, use, persuade, induce, entice and coerce a minor, to wit: John Doe, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing one or more visual depictions of such conduct.”
According to prosecutors, Pick conspired with three others, Jonathan Berretta of Centereach, Maureen Serra of Lake Ronkonkoma and Benjamin Downs of Massachusetts to “ induce, entice and coerce” four minors “to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing one or more visual depictions of such conduct,” including images and video, knowing that the images/video would enter interstate commerce by one or more means such as U.S Mail and the Internet.
The four minors, whose ages were not specified in the indictment, were two boys and two girls. The activity took place within the Eastern District of New York between January 2018 and February 2020, the charging document says. The Eastern District includes Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk.
The defendants are all in custody and and will be arraigned on March 4 before U.S. District Judge Joan Azrack in Central Islip.
Editor’s note: A criminal charge is an accusation. A person charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
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