Ex-school worker sentenced on porn trading

A former monitor at an after-school program for youngsters was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison Friday after pleading guilty to trading child pornography over the Internet.

The nature of the child pornography that Michael Hopkins, 25, of Mineola, traded was particularly disturbing, according to Eastern District federal prosecutors William Campos and Allen Bode.

The pornography contained graphic images of youngsters, ranging from infants to 8-year-olds, being forced into sexual and sadomasochistic acts, Campos and Bode said.

Hopkins pleaded guilty in June. Before he was sentenced, he apologized for his actions.

"I have committed a terrible crime," he said.

There was no evidence that Hopkins molested any children when he was a monitor at the after-school program for kindergarten through fifth grade at Sunquam Elementary School in Melville, according to Hopkins' attorney, Peter Brill, of Hauppauge and Manhattan.

In imposing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt noted that although Hopkins had not produced the child pornography, "if not for people like him, others would not make it."

Spatt, who could have sentenced Hopkins to up to 20 years in prison, ordered him to undergo intensive psychological counseling while incarcerated in the hopes that he could be rehabilitated.

Hopkins still faces charges in Suffolk County of raping a 14-year-old girl he had met on the Internet.

Hopkins did not force the girl to have sex with him, but she was legally considered too young to consent, according to authorities.

The alleged rape was uncovered by FBI agents and Suffolk detectives after Hopkins was arrested in 2010 on the pornography charges, authorities have said.