'Reprehensible': Ex-NYC Cop From LI Who Sexually Exploited Minors Online Sentenced: Feds

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — A former NYC police officer was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexually exploiting minors online, the United States Department of Justice announced in a news release on Friday.

Carmine Simpson, 30, of Holbrook, pleaded guilty on March 24, 2023, to one count of sexually exploiting a minor, the DOJ said. The charges stem from Simpson’s "extensive online conduct" in 2020, while he was a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, officials said.

Simpson engaged numerous children in sexual conversations, enticing and manipulating them into sending him nude images and videos, routinely requesting them to engage in live chat sessions on FaceTime and Snapchat, prosecutors said. He directed them to physically harm themselves, and asked them to write degrading sexual phrases on their nude bodies, investigators said.

Simpson resigned from the NYPD in 2022, federal officials said.

"The defendant’s repeated sexual solicitation and exploitation of minors is reprehensible,” Joseph Nocella, United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, stated in a news release. "That he was a law enforcement officer at the time he committed these crimes makes his conduct even more horrific. My Office will continue to work to protect vulnerable children from predators like the defendant."

Simpson, then a police officer with the NYPD, targeted vulnerable children on Twitter, where he had them create and send him sexually exploitative photos and videos of themselves, officials said. Simpson had multiple Twitter profiles and pretended to be a 17-year-old boy to entice minors into engaging with him, even using a filter to alter his own appearance so that he looked younger, authorities said. Simpson then communicated with numerous minors, including some as young as 13 years old, the DOJ said.

Law enforcement first learned about Simpson's conduct in December 2020, after the mother of John Doe 2, a 13-year-old transgender male, filed a police report after finding chat communications with Simpson on her child’s computer, prosecutors said.

In those messages, Simpson stated, "Do you take good nudes?" and "You take good nudes? Prove it," investigators said. He gave instructions to write words on the victim’s body with a marker and commented: "How many words do you think we can add to your body?" authorities said. As part of that conversation, John Doe 2 sent Simpson at least two sexually explicit videos, the DOJ said.

"Carmine Simpson betrayed his badge by preying upon minors for twisted sexual gratification," said Christopher Raia, assistant director in charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI). "Simpson repeatedly prowled online for minor victims before coercing them to provide sexually explicit and degrading content. The FBI will never tolerate any individual who exploits children, especially those with sworn duties to protect them."

This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to "combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse," the DOJ said.

Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals 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, people may visit here.