Sam Piccinelli: Whalan man with child abuse material avoids jail
A man who stored hundreds of images of naked, pre-pubescent children on his mobile phone has appeared in court to be sentenced - with his lawyer claiming his sickening stash all came from browsing Google.
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A western Sydney man who admitted to storing images of naked, pre-pubescent children on his mobile phone has avoided jail time.
Sam Piccinelli, 24, of Whalan, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child abuse material after Australian Federal Police raided his home in April.
Police were alerted after receiving a tip-off from an agency in the United States about the images, which were stored on a Google Drive account.
According to court documents, the AFP received a report about Piccinelli uploading more than 200 child abuse images onto a Google cloud account in December 2019.
The images allegedly depicted naked, pre-pubescent children with naked adults and were found on a Google Drive app installed on Piccinelli’s Samsung Galaxy mobile phone.
Magistrate Toose said 589 images were found in total and included some animated images.
The prosecution took issue with a defence submission that many of the photos were taken at pools and nudist colonies.
Piccinelli faced Penrith Local Court on Friday for sentencing, where he faced up to two years behind bars for the offence.
His defence solicitor Gary Bailey told the court Piccinelli sourced the images online.
“The images were obtained just by browsing on Google,” Mr Bailey said.
“They were not obtained from the dark web or a closed site or for payment of any money.”
“As abhorrent as it may be, this is how he obtained it.
“In no way whatsoever was he a member of any group when he obtained the material.”
Mr Bailey said Piccinelli had no intention of sharing the material and that there was no evidence he had attempted to procure or share the images.
The court heard Piccinelli suffered from mental health issues and had sought help as a result of his offending.
Magistrate Toose said the offending was a concern but acknowledged he would be at risk if sentenced to full-time jail.
“The problem with these matters is real children are exploited in these photos,” she said.
“If there wasn’t the market for it there would be a deterrent to the people obtaining the photographs.
“They are real people, they are real victims.
“Having this material and using it for your own personal gratification is concerning.”
Piccinelli was placed on a Community Corrections Order for three years.