TRENTON
– Attorney General Paula T. Dow and
Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor
announced that a former Madison Borough police
officer was sentenced today to state prison
for soliciting a nude photo online from a
person he believed was a 13-year-old girl.
According
to Director Taylor, James N. Haspel, 50,
of Chatham, was sentenced to six years in
state prison by Superior Court Judge Thomas
V. Manahan in Morris County. Haspel pleaded
guilty on Aug. 23 to a criminal accusation
charging him with second-degree attempted
endangering the welfare of a child (attempted
distribution of child pornography).
In
pleading guilty, Haspel admitted that he
engaged in Internet communications in which
he solicited a person he believed to be
a 13-year-old girl to send him a nude photo
of herself. In reality, the person was an
undercover detective of the New Jersey State
Police Digital Technology Investigations
Unit.
Haspel
forfeited his job as a police officer as
a result of his guilty plea and will be
permanently barred from public employment.
He will be subject to registration as a
sex offender under Megan’s Law.
“It
is shocking that a police officer would
communicate online in a sexually explicit
way with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old
girl,” said Attorney General Dow.
“He betrayed his badge as well as
any standard of decency.”
“This
prison sentence sends a strong deterrent
message to online predators,” said
Director Taylor. “Sexual predators
may attempt to use the anonymity of the
Internet to commit crimes, but law enforcement
will use that same anonymity to catch them.
I commend the specialists in computer crime
who handled this case for the Division of
Criminal Justice and New Jersey State Police.”
Deputy
Attorney General Kenneth Sharpe prosecuted
Haspel for the Division of Criminal Justice
Financial and Computer Crimes Bureau and
represented the state at the sentencing.
The case was investigated by Detectives
Gregory Godish and Michelle Goncalves of
the New Jersey State Police Digital Technology
Investigations Unit, and Deputy Attorney
General Sharpe.
Haspel
admitted that between December 2009 and
May 2010, he communicated online with a
person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl,
including communications that occurred while
on duty at police headquarters using a computer
supplied by the borough for official police
business.
Haspel
admitted that, during the course of these
communications, he asked the “girl”
to send him a nude photo of herself. Previously,
the State Police charged that Haspel, on
more than one occasion, transmitted Webcam
videos of himself with his genitals exposed
to the person he believed was a 13-year-old
girl.
Haspel,
who held the rank of detective and was employed
by the Madison Borough Police Department
for 25 years, was arrested by the New Jersey
State Police on May 11, 2010. He was suspended
without pay from his job at the police department
on May 12, 2010.