Lancaster Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For Child Pornography
Sunday, December 22, 2024, 12:30 P.M. ET. 2 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,
BUFFALO, NY.- On Wednesday, a 30-year-old Lancaster, New York, man previously convicted on a New York child pornography charge learned he would be spending nearly the next two-and-a-half decades in federal prison after being convicted in federal court for receipt of child pornography.
On Wednesday, December 18, 2024, Christopher Gostick, 30, of Lancaster, New York, appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York and was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Acara to 292 months in U.S. Federal Prison on his conviction relating to the Possession of Child Pornography.
According to U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross and charging documents filed with the court, on June 9 and June 10, 2023, Gostick attended a sleepover birthday party, during which he kissed a minor child, who was nine years old on the lips. The child told her parents, which prompted her parents to call the police.
When Police Officers arrived at the residence, they took Gostick’s cellular phones and tablet. A subsequent review of one of the phones uncovered a secretly recorded video of the child using the bathroom.
In addition to the video of the 9-year-old child, Police Officers also uncovered, on Gostick’s other cell phone, a screen recording of a Snapchat conversation between Gostick and a second minor child, who was 10 years old at the time.
During that conversation, Gostick, who was posing as an 11-year-old female, instructed the 10-year-old child to send him a sexually explicit video, which the child did.
A complete forensic examination of Gostick’s electronic devices also uncovered approximately 613 digital images and two video files depicting the sexual exploitation and abuse of prepubescent and pubescent children.
Gostick was convicted in August 2019 on a New York State charge of Attempted Possession of a Sexual Performance by a Child Less than Sixteen.
U.S. Attorney Ross commended the investigative work of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations and the Buffalo Police Department for Gostick’s successful prosecution
