May 5, 2016 Staff Report
An East Elmhurst man has been sentenced to one to three years in prison after sexually explicit photos of children were discovered on his computer.
Computer technicians found the photographs after Michael Murray, of 89th Street in East Elmhurst, dropped his computer off at Best Buy for repairs in 2014.
Murray pleaded guilty to promoting a sexual performance by a child, according to Queens District Attorney Robert Brown.
“The defendant pleaded guilty to having vile, disturbing images of children on his computer’s hard drive. He even used these repugnant photos as a screen saver slide show,” Brown said in a statement. “It is vitally important for the public to realize that these photographs depict real children who have been sexually abused. They are youngsters who will forever be emotionally and physically scarred by what happened to them.”
According to Brown, a technician at the 50-01 Northern Blvd. Best Buy began work on Murray’s computer in April 2014. Upon booting up, the computer’s screen saver started displaying a slide show of multiple images of young girls posing provocatively and some engaged in sex acts with adult men.
Police were notified and when they went to the defendant’s home, he admitted that he had been exchanging files of child pornography on the Internet for about five years. The NYPD Computer Crime Squad revealed the computer had more than 300 images of children between the ages of two and three being sexually abused, according to Brown.
Murray will be required to register as a sex offender following his release.
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