Edenton man sentenced to 8½ years in fed prison for receiving child porn

An Edenton man who had more than 3,000 images of child pornography in his possession, including of infants and toddlers, has been sentenced to 8½ years in federal prison following his conviction on charges of receiving child pornography.

Matterson Xavier Rusyn, 61, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III to an active prison term of 102 months followed by 10 years of supervised release, a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District states. In addition, Rusyn also was ordered to pay $107,000 in restitution to 16 known victims of the child pornography he was convicted of receiving.

According to the press release, law enforcement began investigating Rusyn after Microsoft reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that one of its users had uploaded an image of child pornography into a reverse Bing image search in an attempt to find similar images.

The NCMEC forwarded the report to the Chowan Sheriff’s Office, where officials learned the IP address used to upload the images was connected to Rusyn.

Chowan deputies later executed a search warrant at Rusyn’s home, where he admitted he was collecting both images and videos of child pornography, the release states.

Deputies seized multiple digital devices from Rusyn, including his cell phone, computers and hard drives. A forensic analysis found the devices to contain more than 3,000 images and videos, including of infants, toddlers and very young children. Rusyn also had in his position images “depicting sadistic and masochistic conduct,” the release states.

The federal government’s release doesn’t indicate when NCMEC made the report to the Chowan Sheriff’s Office, when Rusyn was arrested, or if he pleaded guilty to the charges.