A 29-year-old man from Norwood, UK, who confessed to sharing explicit images of children online, has been sentenced to five years of probation and must register as a sex offender for 25 years. The man admitted to posting the images multiple times a day. Alex Rose reported
A 29-year-old man from Norwood named Jesse A. Altman has been sentenced to five years of probation and must register as a sex offender for 25 years. Altman admitted to posting naked pictures of children on the internet five to 10 times a day. Altman pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, dissemination of child pornography, and criminal use of a communication device. He was initially charged with 110 counts, but the remaining charges were dropped as part of the plea deal.
The investigation into Altman began when the Delaware County Crimes Against Children Task Force discovered that a user with the screen name “Wolfie” and the username “DinoNugget_nom” had shared two images of child exploitation material on the social media platform Kik. The user’s Kik account was traced back to Altman’s apartment through subscriber records. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that the same user had uploaded 27 images of suspected child pornography to Kik.
When detectives served a search warrant on Altman’s apartment, he broke down in tears and admitted to his actions. Altman stated that he did not know why he was attracted to young boys but claimed to be trying to control himself and expressed self-hatred for his desires. Altman confessed to posting naked pictures of children 5 to 10 times a day, explaining that he obtained the images from Kik and would delete them after reposting.
During the investigation, 85 images fitting the criteria for child pornography were found on Altman’s devices, and an additional 200 “age difficult” images were recovered but had not been definitively identified as child pornography. Altman had also made a comment expressing sexual interest in a boy in a social media post. Furthermore, Altman approached two young boys in a park and offered to buy them anything they wanted, indicating his attraction to children in the same age group as the images he had been viewing and sharing.
Defense counsel Alan Tauber argued for leniency, highlighting Altman’s troubled childhood, which involved physical and sexual abuse, poverty, and isolation. Altman has an autism diagnosis and has struggled with mental health disorders, leading to prior suicide attempts and over-medication. Tauber emphasized that Altman was actively seeking treatment and had shown enthusiasm for addressing his traumatic past through therapy.
Despite Altman’s difficult upbringing, the prosecution maintained that it did not excuse his behavior. While he was not deemed a sexually violent predator, Altman was diagnosed with pedophilia. The judge ordered Altman to serve the first year of probation on house arrest with electronic home monitoring and imposed several restrictions, including no unsupervised contact with minors and no access to any form of pornography. Altman must undergo a psychosexual evaluation, stay away from illegal substances, comply with substance abuse evaluation recommendations, forfeit all seized devices, and provide a DNA sample to state police..