PRESS RELEASE
WORCEST ERM ANCAUG H T IN UNDERCOV ER FBI ST ING SENTENC ED FOR
ATTEMPT ED ENTICEME NT O F AMIN OR A ND CH ILD PORNOGRAPHY

Worcester, MA... A Worcester Man caught in an FBI undercover sting in which he believed he was communicating over the Internet with a thirteen-year-old girl, was sentenced late yesterday in federal court for attempted enticement of a minor and distributing sexually explicit images of a minor.

Alice S. Fisher, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice; Michael J. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; and Kenneth W. Kaiser, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New England, announced that ROBERT A. FAFARD, age 62, of 8 White Birch Drive, Worcester, Massachusetts, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to nine years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised releases. On May 25, 2006, FAFARD pleaded guilty to a four-count Indictment charging him with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor, transportation of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.

At the defendant’s May 25 plea hearing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office advised the Court that if the case had gone to trial, the government would have proved that in April 2004, an FBI agent trained in child enticement cases, posed as a 12 year-old girl and in that role, posted a profile on the Internet that included a photograph and the Internet name “OhioLisa13". FAFARD contacted the undercover agent, believing that he had contacted the 12 year-old girl. In a series of Internet chats, FAFARD sent her child pornography to entice her to agree to be photographed in sexually suggestive ways and to engage in sexual conduct with him. FAFARD also participated in recorded telephone calls with an undercover police officer posing as “OhioLisa13.” In the recorded calls, FAFARD spoke about wanting to engage in sexual conduct with her and to photograph her naked. In September 2004, “OhioLisa13" told FAFARD she was relocating to Rhode Island. FAFARD pressed the undercover agent for the address in Rhode Island, and used the Internet to print out directions to travel from his Worcester residence to the Rhode Island address. FBI agents arrested FAFARD and searched his residence on November 10, 2004. Agents seized two computers with several hundred images of child pornography, a 50-state atlas opened to Rhode Island and a MapQuest print out of directions. FAFARD confessed to downloading pictures over the Internet and conceded he may have sent “OhioLisa13" child pornography.

The investigation was conducted by the Cleveland, Ohio and Hudson field offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio Police Department. Members of the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section’s High Technology Investigative Unit assisted the FBI with the forensic examinations of FAFARD’s computer. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hennessy in the District of Massachusetts and DOJ Trial Attorney Jennifer Toritto Leonardo in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. Press Contact: Samantha Martin, (617) 748-3139