$75G bail set for Swampscott kid porn suspect

SALEM – Bail for a Swampscott man police say had 1,000 child pornography images on his computer and allegedly sent some of those images to police detectives in Swampscott and Virginia remains at $75,000 cash, after he pleaded innocent Friday.Alexander Fridman, 32, of 12 Priscilla Road, pleaded not guilty in Salem Superior Court to five counts of distribution of visual material of a nude child to detectives in Virginia and Swampscott on July 5 and Nov. 2, the date of his arrest.Judge Maureen Hogan agreed to set the same bail as was previously set in Lynn District Court and continued the case to Feb. 19 for a pretrial conference.Defense lawyer Kevin M. Mitchell asked that a bail hearing be held at another court date, and the judge agreed.In the meantime, Fridman remains held on bail at the Middleton Jail. If he posts the $75,000 cash bail, he will be on pretrial conditions which include that he continue to live with his parents on Priscilla Road, be on 24-hour house arrest, monitored by an ankle bracelet only to leave for medical, court or attorney appointments. He is not to use any computer or have any unsupervised visits with children until his case is resolved.Fridman is accused of sending some 130 images over the Internet to a Virginia detective, who posed as a 13-year-old boy named David for several months.The Virginia investigator identified Fridman, who went by the Internet screen name Jr00t2007, by tracking his screen name to an account held by his 68-year-old mother.Virginia authorities have obtained a warrant against Fridman charging him with felony pornography charges, according to Assistant District Attorney Jean M. Curran, who is prosecuting the case for the commonwealth.Fridman had downloaded images to all four computers in the home as well as to a computer at work at a Bedford firm and shared numerous sexual chats on the Internet.Fridman apparently told police he has been collecting child pornography, more than 1,000 images, since age 13, is a “closet homosexual,” and is attracted to underage boys.His elderly parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Ukraine when Fridman was 4, hugged their son and wept openly in court prior to and following his arraignment.Swampscott detectives Sgt. Timothy Cassidy and Ted Delano with John Chapman of the Dumfries, Va. police department spearheaded the joint investigation of the case.