Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that a 57-year-old Queens resident has been sentenced to 6 months in jail after pleading guilty to possessing a sexual performance by a child. The defendant stored numerous images of boys – as young as 6 – engaging in various sexual acts with other underage children. The images were found on several electronic devices in the defendant’s home in March of 2018.

Queens District Attorney Katz said, “In pleading guilty, the defendant admitted to collecting this material – images that are for all intents and purposes crime scene photos of children being sexually abused. The defendant is going to jail for this, and he will also be required to complete a program for sexual offenders.”

The District Attorney’s Office identified the defendant as Mohamed Pasha, 57, of Ferndale Avenue in Queens. Pasha pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a sexual performance by a child in October of 2019, before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Bruna DiBiase. Yesterday, Justice DiBiase sentenced the defendant to 6 months in jail, to be followed by 10 years’ post release supervision. As a result of this plea, the defendant agreed to forfeit his electronic devices and must complete a sex offender program and will also be required to register as a sex offender for life.

According to the charges, said District Attorney Katz, on March 26, 2018, Google alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that the defendant used his Google account to store 17 graphic images and videos of boys ages 6 to 11 performing sexual acts on other boys. Using this information, authorities subpoenaed the IP address associated with the account and traced Pasha’s whereabouts to a home located on Ferndale Avenue.

Continuing, said DA Katz, on November 21, 2018, authorities visited Pasha’s home, where he admitted to owning the account and a cell phone found in the residence. A forensic examination of the phone yielded 26 additional images of young boys.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Speck, of the District Attorney’s Organized Crime and Rackets Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Kateri Gasper, Chief of the District Attorney’s Computer Crimes Unit, Gerard A. Brave, Bureau Chief, Catherine C. Kane and Mary M. Lowenburg, Deputy Chiefs.