Ex-Middletown officer gets 7 years in prison for receiving child pornography Pleads guilty to child exploitation charges

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CROMWELL >> A former Middletown police officer was sentenced May 1 in U.S. District Court to seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty in September to receiving child pornography, according to a press release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Samuel DiProto, 63, downloaded pornography files from a from a file-sharing network from 2009-2013.

DiProto was a police officer with the Middletown department from Sept. 21, 1987, to Aug. 19, 2009, according to police spokeswoman Lt. Heather Desmond.

A Connecticut State Police detective discovered DiProto’s child pornography after logging into the publicly available Internet file-sharing network, according to court documents. Authorities were able to trace a computer with the pornographic photographs and videos back to DiProto, the release said.

DiProto is required to complete 10 years of supervised release when he finishes his prison sentence.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice created the nationwide initiative to protect children from exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. attorneys’ offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood taps federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.