The Fulton man who prosecutors called a prolific provider of child pornography will spend the next 20 years in federal prison.
Leonard Allen’s sentencing in Syracuse Federal Court Tuesday ended a two and a half year journey towards prison that began with a New Hampshire police investigator’s curiosity.
Documents in Allen’s case show that Det. Sgt. James McLaughlin of the Keene, New Hampshire police noticed that someone with the username CHRHYA2008 had uploaded about 30 files of children in bathing suits to a website.
He sent an e-mail to CHRHYA2008 to his Gmail address, posing as someone interested in child pornography.
CHRHYA2008, who called himself Chris Hyatt, pointed the undercover investigator to other child porn websites.
“Found a younger group,” the man calling himself Hyatt wrote. “If your [sic] interested, I’ll send you the link.”
“Would love it,” the investigator responded.
The link he received took him to a website with image files showing prepubescent children showing their genitals and simulating sex with other children.
CHRHYA2008 was listed on the site as a Top Contributor and had uploaded two videos on August 15, 2010. The videos showed children engaged in sexual activity.
McLaughlin traced the screenname to an account with Windstream Communications, and from there, to Allen, in Fulton.
McLaughlin gave the info to the Oswego County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff’s Department Investigator Carmen Rojek quickly found Allen’s prior conviction for sexual abuse in 2000, for having sex with a person younger than 14. He was sentenced to 9 months in jail and was listed as a Level 2 sex offender.
Fulton City Court Judge Spencer Ludington signed a search warrant on Nov. 1. The next day, police removed computers and digital media from Allen’s home. A key find: A Seagate portable hard drive found tucked underneath a cushion in Allen’s bedroom.
They also took numerous CDs, DVDs and computers from the home.
During the search, police say Allen admitted to being “Chris Hyatt” and said he was the moderator of an internet group at allaroundbois2010/grou.ps that showed sexual photos.
By May, investigators Rojek and Bryan Blake had found scores of child porn images on Allen’s computers.
Allen identified the images on his computers. Police believe he did not make the photos or videos himself, but got them from elsewhere and provided them to others.
Prosecutors gave him credit for cooperating with police and for accepting responsibility for his actions, though they noted in a sentencing memorandum that his acceptance was “minimal”. From the government’s memo:
As a registered sex offender, Leonard Allen engaged in a prolific on-line habit of posting, trading, acquiring, and collecting child pornography and child erotica. Despite his current statement that “his main interest was college-age students of both genders,” Allen’s collection included “over 1,000 images and videos of child pornography . . . includ[ing] children under the age of 12 engaged in anal intercourse.”
Prosecutors asked for at least 24 years in prison.
Allen’s lawyer, in asking for a lesser sentence, told this story of Allen’s early life: Because he was smaller than other people his age, he was routinely “attacked and abused by bigger, more powerful people.”
In Florida, where his father managed a farm workers’ camp, Allen was molested and sodomized by a man in the camp, the federal public defender wrote. Allen was only 6 or 7 at the time.
When he returned to New York, he was bullied at school and raped by a neighborhood teenager when he was 12.
He repeated 7th grade 3 times and dropped out in the 8th grade. At 16, he and a friend robbed a gas station at gunpoint. He was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison where, because of his age and small stature, he was repeatedly gang-raped by prisoners, according to the lawyer, the lawyer alleged.
Allen tried suicide several times and is being treated for depression and paranoid schizophrenia, the document reports. The public defender asked for a sentence of 5 years, along with appropriate mental health treatment.
Allen, 46, was sentenced by Judge Norman Mordue to 20 years in federal prison and lifetime supervised release afterwards.
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