LYNN — A city man who formerly managed the Connery Skating rink pleaded guilty Monday to possession and distribution of child pornography, and was sentenced to six months in a house of corrections followed by three years of probation.
“The videos the defendant possessed are not only illegal but are portraying children that are being raped — in several of the videos adult males are having sex with younger males,” Essex Assistant District Attorney Kristen Buxton said Monday in Salem Superior Court. “The market for these videos are perpetuated by people like (the defendant). New videos are being made every day, and each of those referenced in the indictment show sexual abuse.”
Jared Surette, 28, of 9 Stanwood St., pleaded guilty to one count of dissemination of child pornography; and 10 counts of possession of child pornography.
The charges stemmed from a March 2011 online undercover investigation into child pornography on Internet file-sharing networks. Police downloaded a video depicting child pornography and then traced it to a computer at the home where Surette lived with his parents.
Police searched a computer in Surette’s bedroom in May 2011 and found a copy of the file they had downloaded along with 86 other videos depicting children in pornographic situations. Surette at first claimed a virus must have infected his computer; then he admitted that he downloaded the videos.
“He said he would get depressed and look for those materials, that he did derive sexual pleasure from them, and felt guilty about this and knew it was wrong,” Buxton told the court in reciting the facts of the case.
Surette admitted the facts were true.
Buxton recommended a two- to three-year sentence in state prison for the possession counts and five years probation for the dissemination charge. She recommended conditions of probation including that Surette have no unsupervised contact with children under 16, submit to random searches of Internet-accessible devices or any devices with memory and undergo a mental-health evaluation.
Defense Attorney Gary Zerola recommended three years probation. Zerola argued the file-sharing network made the dissemination charge — a charge with a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison — misleading.
“He was not in the active sense of the word, sending images of child pornography to anybody, they were simply sitting on his computer,” Zerola said. “It’s something that’s available to anybody, it’s not that he was selling them.”
Zerola also said that — although Surette no longer works at the rink — during his tenure at the rink, police found no evidence of any inappropriate behavior.
“There were never accusations that he said anything inappropriately or acted inappropriately,” Zerola said. “There is a personality difference between somebody who views child pornography and somebody who commits a violent act against children. That (the latter) is not Mr. Surette, he is a good kid.”
Salem Superior Court Judge Howard Whitehead sentenced Surette to six months in a house of correction for one count of possession of child pornography, to be followed by three years probation for the remaining possession counts and the dissemination charge.
He set probation conditions including that Surette have no unsupervised contact with children under age 16, submit to random computer screens, comply with probation and register as a sex offender and wear a GPS monitor.
Surette’s father had no comment after the sentencing.
Zerola said his client was accepting responsibility for his actions and moving forward with his life.
Cyrus Moulton can be reached at [email protected].
