Source: Office of United States Attorneys
Fort Myers, Florida – U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Barber today sentenced Dominic Lawrence Carsi (34, Naples) to 12 years and 6 months in federal prison for distributing videos depicting the sexual abuse of a child. The court also sentenced Carsi to a term of supervised release for life and ordered him to register as a sex offender. Carsi had entered a guilty plea on October 31, 2023.
According to court documents, on February 27, 2023, Carsi distributed videos of young children being sexually abused through his social media account to an undercover agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) located in Minnesota. Using the chat function in another social media app, Carsi wrote to the undercover agent that he had plenty more.
On April 11, 2023, agents with HSI in Fort Myers executed a search warrant for Carsi’s residence and seized Carsi’s cellphone and computer. The subsequent forensic examination of the devices revealed more than 600 images and over 570 videos depicting the sexual abuse of children.
On April 11, 2023, during an interview with agents, Carsi admitted that he watched and downloaded child sex abuse material. Carsi remembered the conversation with the undercover agent, and he admitted that he sent a video of a baby and another video of a four-year-old child being sexually abused.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, a member of the Southwest Florida Inter-Agency Child Exploitation and Persons Trafficking (INTERCEPT) Task Force, which also includes Collier County Sheriff’s Office and Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Yolande G. Viacava.
This is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.