Sheriffs Deputy, Peter Farnum Sentenced to 87 Months for Possessing Child Porn
Peter Farnum, age 42, of Clifton Park, New York, was sentenced today to 87 months in prison, to be followed by a 20-year term of supervised release, for possessing child pornography.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and James N. Hendricks, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The sentence follows Farnum’s June 5, 2018 conviction, after a two-week jury trial, for possession of child pornography. The evidence at trial established that Farnum, a former sergeant with the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, possessed more than 1,000 image and video files on his family computer that contained child pornography. These included, among many others, image files that Farnum imported through the computer’s RealPlayer application while he conducted online research related to his position with the Sheriff’s Office and while his wife was in the hospital. Senior United States District Judge Norman A. Mordue presided over the trial and imposed today’s sentence.
This case was investigated by the FBI and its Child Exploitation Task Force, with assistance from the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne A. Myers. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph A. Giovannetti prosecuted the case to trial.
This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood. Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), and is designed to marshal federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
