REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR SHARING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

On March 7, Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced that a Yorktown man was sentenced to three to six years in state prison for sharing child pornography on social media. The defendant was on probation for a prior sex offense conviction at the time of his arrest.  

On October 15, 2021, Dylan Rodriguez, 31, uploaded a video of an approximately five-year-old female child engaged in sexual conduct to the online messaging application Kik, and was in possession of an image of a female minor engaged in a sexual act. The defendant also failed to disclose to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services the creation of a new email address between October 2021 and April 2022, a mandatory requirement of all registered sex offenders. An investigation determined that email address was used to open and access his Kik account.  

The Cyber Crimes Bureau and High Technology Crimes Squad of the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office conducted the investigation after receiving a referral from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The District Attorney’s Office arrested the defendant on April 29, 2022, with assistance from the Westchester County Department of Probation.  

On December 12, 2022, the defendant pleaded guilty to Promoting an Obscene Sexual Performance by a Child, Possessing an Obscene Sexual Performance by a Child, and Failure to Register and to Verify, all felonies, and also admitted to violating conditions of his probation. The defendant will be required to re-register as a sex offender upon completing his prison sentence.  

The defendant was previously sentenced in 2013 to 10 years of probation, which included sex offender conditions, after pleading guilty to Promoting an Obscene Sexual Performance by a Child and Possessing an Obscene Sexual Performance by a Child. The defendant was certified as a Level One Sex Offender by the Court in 2014.  

The District Attorney thanked the Westchester County Department of Probation for their assistance on this case. The case was before Judge Susan Cacace in Westchester County Court, and was prosecuted by Cyber Crimes Deputy Bureau Chief Laura Forbes of the Trials and Investigations Division.