Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino announced that a Bergen County man was sentenced to prison today for distributing explicit images of minors on the Internet. He was arrested in “Operation Ever Vigilant,” a explicit images of minors sweep conducted in 2013 by the New Jersey State Police, the Division of Criminal Justice, the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and federal partners.
Joseph Lorz, 30, of Bergenfield was sentenced to three years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Margaret M. Foti in Bergen County. He pleaded guilty on Aug. 9, 2016 to a charge of second-degree distribution of explicit images of minors. He will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law.
In pleading guilty, Lorz admitted he knowingly used file-sharing software to make multiple files of explicit images of minors readily available for any other user to download from a designated “shared folder” on his computer. A forensic examination of computer equipment seized from him in Operation Ever Vigilant revealed numerous images and videos of explicit images of minors, including images of prepubescent girls being raped by adult men.
Operation Ever Vigilant was a three-month investigation conducted by the State Police Digital Technology Investigations Unit (DTIU), the Division of Criminal Justice, other members of the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and federal agents from the U.S. Postal Service. It resulted in arrests of 24 men and one juvenile male in February 2013.
During the investigation, detectives monitored a file-sharing network popular with sex offenders and linked all of the defendants to alleged use of the Internet to download and distribute images of explicit images of minors. Peer to Peer, or P2P, file sharing networks play a major role in the distribution of explicit images of minors. There is a large library of images and videos known to law enforcement, and these electronic files can be traced in various ways on the Internet. Detectives traced transferred files to their origin and destination locations, downloading explicit images of minors that the defendants allegedly offered from their computers on the P2P network.
The file-sharing networks used by offenders to distribute explicit images of minors operate in the same manner as websites used for privately sharing music or movies. Those in possession of the illegal images can make them available on computers that they control for others to download. Because many of these videos and photos of explicit images of minors keep recirculating, they result in the perpetual re-victimization of the children who were sexually assaulted or abused to produce them.
Attorney General Porrino and Director Honig urged anyone who has information about the distribution of explicit images of minors on the Internet or who suspects improper contact by unknown persons communicating with children via the Internet or possible exploitation or sexual abuse of children to contact the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Tipline at 888-648-6007.