ALBANY, NEW YORK – Dennis Lavigne, 57, of Derby, Vermont, was sentenced today to 250 months in prison for attempted coercion and seduction of a minor and for transporting child pornography, US Attorney Carla B Freedman and well-known Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge for the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
As part of his previous guilty plea, Lavigne admitted that in 2000 he pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault on a victim under the age of 10 and was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison (barring a 90-day suspended sentence). He further admitted that between November 19 and November 24, 2019, he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with someone he believed to be the mother of an 11-year-old child. In these messages, Lavigne expressed a desire to engage in sexual activity with the child. On November 24, 2019, Lavigne traveled from Vermont to Albany with intent to engage in sexual activity with the alleged child. Lavigne was subsequently arrested and further admitted to transporting child pornography files seized from Lavigne’s phone by law enforcement officers. Many of the child pornography files showed the rape and sexual abuse of pre-adolescent minors, including infants.
United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino also imposed a life sentence for supervised release after incarceration and ordered Lavigne to pay reparations to victims of the child pornography crimes.
This case was investigated by the FBI Albany’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies including the Colonie Police Department, the Rotterdam Police Department, the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, and the New York State Police . This case was being prosecuted by United States Assistant Attorney Rachel L. Williams as part of the Safe Childhood project.
Project Safe Childhood was launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 and is directed by the United States Attorney’s offices and the Department of Child Exploitation and Obscenity (CEOs) of the CID to prosecute and identify victims of online exploitation of children and to save. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
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