Oneida County Pastor Sentenced to Federal Prison for Possessing Child Pornography

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK - James H. Swanson, age 59, of Rome, New York, was sentenced today to three years in federal prison for possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent in Charge of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Buffalo, New York Field Office.

As part of his earlier guilty plea, Swanson admitted that between March 25, 2022, and March 28, 2022, he uploaded several videos of child pornography to a cloud storage account under his control. Swanson also admitted that he had engaged in this type of conduct for years but would periodically purge his collection of child pornography before eventually accessing, viewing, and downloading more. According to documents filed in United States District Court, Swanson worked as a pastor for decades and most recently served as the pastor of the Rome Wesleyan Church.

In addition to sentencing Swanson to serve time in federal prison, Chief United States District Judge, Brenda K. Sannes, also imposed a 15-year term of supervised release which Swanson will begin serving after he is released from prison at which time Swanson will also be required to register as a sex offender.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HIS), the New York State Police (NYSP), and the Oneida County Sheriff's Office and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrian S. LaRochelle as part of Project Safe Childhood.

Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorney's offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), and is designed to marshal federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.