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Merrimack Valley

Judge shows leniency in child porn case

By Jill Harmacinski
Staff writer
Published: July 23, 2008

SALEM — A Superior Court judge yesterday acknowledged he was being lenient when he sentenced a 21-year-old Lawrence man to a four-year sentence in the house of correction after pleading guilty to 51 counts of illegal possession and distribution of child pornography.

The case against Matthew Grasso of 73 Thornton St. is believed to be the largest child pornography case ever in Essex County.

Had Grasso been sentenced under maximum guidelines for each criminal count, he faced 765 years in state prison, Judge Howard Whitehead said.

Grasso had no previous criminal record "but obviously has some very serious problems he needs to address," defense attorney Carol Cahill said in court yesterday.

Whitehead said he viewed some of the pornography in the case and found it "literally sick."

"It is abnormal to be attracted to those kinds of images," the judge said.

Whitehead said he based his sentence on Grasso's relative youth. Had he been a decade older, the judge said he may have imposed a harsher sentence.

Essex Assistant District Attorney Marcia Slingerland asked the court to impose a sentence of 10 to 15 years in state prison, while Cahill urged the court to impose a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.

Grasso is scheduled to serve two consecutive two-year terms in the house of correction, followed by 20 years of probation.

A statement from the office of District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said "Judge Whitehead made clear the gravity of the crimes during sentencing, but indicated he was imposing the House of Correction sentences due to the defendant's youth, and because Grasso began accessing child pornography, without intervention, from the time he was just 15 years old."

Terms of his probation include that Grasso register as a sex offender, adhere to an 11 p.m. curfew, be subject to GPS monitoring, and that he not leave Massachusetts without the permission of the court. In addition, he may not possess or use a computer, and may not access the Internet with any device, including a cell phone, during his 20 years of probation.

Whitehead further ordered that as a condition of probation, Grasso must undergo sex offender treatment and counseling at the direction of the probation department.

The case was opened after state police received nine "cyber tips" about Grasso distributing pornography online.

On March 6, 2007, armed with a search warrant, troopers found more than 200,000 photos, videos, CDs and DVDs depicting child pornography after they searched Grasso's computer and bedroom. Two, three-ring binders containing laminated pornographic pictures were found underneath his mattress. Thousands more of still images and videos were found on CDs and DVDs stored throughout his room.

"I know it sounds stupid, but I am going to sell them," Grasso initially told state troopers who found the child pornography in his room.

Yesterday, Grasso, with his weeping parents sitting in the courtroom gallery, answered "guilty" 51 times as the charges against him were read aloud in Salem Superior Court.

Whitehead urged Grasso, a 2005 graduate of Haverhill High School, to get "to the root" of his compulsive behavior "very quickly." Grasso, unshaven and dressed in blue pants and a light blue shirt, stood expressionless before the judge.

Grasso started collecting child pornography at age 15 and distributed the pictures, mostly of prepubescent boys, on the Internet.

The judge said he strongly suspects Grasso himself was the victim of sexual abuse, although that was never confirmed in court yesterday. He ordered him to register as a sex offender and undergo sex offender counseling. He said he feared without a "tight rein," Grasso would eventually abuse children in the same manner depicted in the pornography he collected.

Prosecutor Slingerland said child pornography is not a "victimless" offense.

Slingerland said even after his initial arraignment, where he was barred from accessing the Internet from his computer, Grasso, a shipping and receiving clerk, was caught cleaning out an e-mail account using a computer at work.

"The defendant was under a court order not to use the Internet," Slingerland said. But, she added, "he was unable to keep himself from accessing a computer."

"The defendant has already showed he's a poor candidate for rehab," Slingerland said.

The judge told Grasso that if he violates probation in any way during the two decades after his release, he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in state prison.

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