| TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that a former Rutgers University undergraduate was sentenced to prison today for distributing child pornography over the Internet while a student at the university in New Brunswick.
Hongyu Wang, 21, of Piscataway, was sentenced to three years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Alberto Rivas in Middlesex County. Wang pleaded guilty on Nov. 22, 2013, to second-degree distribution of child pornography and fourth-degree attempted tampering with evidence. He will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s law. Deputy Attorney General Naju Lathia prosecuted the case and handled the sentencing for the Division of Criminal Justice Computer Analysis & Technology Unit, within the Financial & Computer Crimes Bureau.
“Each time we send a defendant to prison for downloading and sharing child pornography online, we send a strong deterrent message to other would-be users of this filth that this is a very serious crime with very serious consequences,” said Acting Attorney General Hoffman. “We will continue to make these cases a top priority in order to protect children.”
“Offenders who share child pornography on the Internet come from all walks of life and can be found in any setting,” said Director Elie Honig of the Division of Criminal Justice. “Whoever they are and wherever they are, we will find them and put them behind bars where they belong.”
The New Jersey State Police Digital Technology Investigation Unit and the New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force were investigating individuals who were using peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software to share child pornography on the Internet in December 2011 when they downloaded child pornography via P2P file sharing from a computer that was traced to Rutgers University. Further investigation revealed that the computer belonged to Wang.
When a detective approached Wang at the university on Jan. 26, 2012, he agreed to speak to the detective and ride with him to the apartment he shared with his parents, where the computer was located at the time. However, at the apartment, Wang shoved his mother in front of the detective and ran toward his bedroom. The detective stopped Wang before he reached the computer, and it was later discovered that Wang had powerful magnets in his shoes that he intended to use to destroy the data on the hard drive of his computer. The detective obtained a search warrant and found a large number of child pornography files on Wang’s computer. A forensic exam of the computer revealed that Wang was sharing 230 child pornography videos at the time of his arrest. Rutgers expelled Wang after his arrest. The State Police and ICAC Task Force were assisted by the Rutgers University Police Department.
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