Belchertown man arraigned on child pornography charge

As part of Operation Corral, a statewide sweep of child pornography suspects, a team of investigators led by Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Thomas Bakey executed a search warrant at 418 Chauncey Walker Rd., Belchertown on Thursday, April 5, and arrested Craig Cilley, age 27, of that address. 

Cilley was charged with one count of possession of child pornography, although additional charges are anticipated. 

An external computer drive, to which Cilley admitted sole ownership, was found under Cilley’s bed and contained approximately 150 videos of children between the ages of 3 and 14  engaged in sexual acts.  One video features a small girl, approximately 3 years old, being engaged in sexual acts by an adult male.  Another video featured several girls, ages approximately 7 to 14 years old, engaged in sexual acts with men. 

Later that day, at Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Assistant District Attorney Christine Tetreault requested that Cilley be held on $10,000 cash bail, with conditions imposed if he posted the bail.  Judge John Payne released Cilley on a personal surety, with the conditions that he have no Internet access of any kind and no unsupervised contact with children. 

He is scheduled to return to court for a pre-trial hearing on May 25.

Sgt. Bakey obtained a search warrant after undercover officers conducted an online investigation into the sharing of child pornography on the Internet over various peer-to-peer networks.
Officers were able to download a video containing child pornography from Cilley’s computer.  After further investigation to identify the location of the computer, it was determined that the computer was at the Chauncey Walker Road address, and the investigation was turned over to the State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office. 

Sgt. Bakey was assisted in executing the search warrant by Troopers Will Medina and Jamie Magarian of the SPDU, Officer Corey Robinson of the Northampton Police Department, who is a member of the District Attorney’s Child Sexual Predator Task Force, and members of the Belchertown Police Department.  Police seized a desktop computer, as well as the external drive containing the videos.

Operation Corral was a statewide effort, coordinated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which targeted internet child pornography.  State and local law enforcement officers executed search warrants throughout the state during the week of March 30 through April 5.  This week was chosen to highlight the beginning of National Child Abuse Awareness Month.  According to Col. Marion McGovern, commander of the Massachusetts State Police, a total of 32 people were arrested on child pornography and related charges.  In addition, seven cases are awaiting criminal complaints, and 14 investigations are still on-going. 

In addition to the raid on Cilley’s residence in Belchertown, the law enforcement team executed a search warrant in Greenfield, seizing computer equipment there as well.  As that investigation is still on-going, the name of the parties involved and the address are not being released.