NORTON — A local man has been sentenced to serve 18 months of a 2 ½-year jail term after pleading guilty to downloading over 400 images of child pornography, the Bristol County district attorney’s office said Thursday.
Brian Mello, 52, of 28 East Hodges St., was sentenced last Friday by Fall River Superior Court Judge Raffi Yessayan.
The balance of the sentence was suspended for three years of probation after Mello completes his jail term.
Mello admitted to downloading the child pornography under the username Dorian Gray, a fictional character in a novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, the district attorney’s office said.
The images depicted naked prepubescent girls, as young as 3-5 years old, exposing their genitalia and engaging in sexual activity, the district attorney’s office said.
Mello also admitted to directly messaging other people on the social media app Tumblr to transmit child pornography.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of disseminating material of a child in a sexual act and one count each of possession of child pornography and disseminating material of a child in the nude.
The Massachusetts State Police Cyber Crimes Unit received two tip reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in January 2020 about Mello’s social media activity regarding child pornography.
A trooper assigned to the unit determined the defendant was “Dorian Gray” and obtained a search warrant in July 2020, the district attorney’s office said.
Investigators seized Mello’s Samsung cellphone, which had 442 child pornographic files that were stored in a secret vault application, the office said.
During the sentencing hearing last Friday, Assistant District Attorney Jose Vazquez argued Mello should be sent to prison for up to four years. The defendant’s lawyer requested three years of probation without any incarceration.
When he is released from jail, Mello must have no unsupervised contact with children under 16, register as a sex offender and continue with sex offender counseling.
He must also provide a DNA sample and register electronic devices which are subject to random monitoring by the probation department, according to the district attorney’s office.
If he violates the terms of his probation, Mello risks serving the balance of his jail term.
David Linton may be reached at 508-236-0338.
