Man Who Taped Child Sexual Assault Gets 20 Years

An Ocean County man who pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor, sexually abusing an 18-month old and streaming footage of the assault over the Internet was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in federal prison and five years supervised release.

Rodford W. Brindley of Toms River taped the sexual assault of a young child who he was babysitting, according to the U.S. Attorney Office.

The case stems from an April 2, 2012 tip received by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office from the Franklin County, Ohio Sheriff’s Department, which was conducting an investigation on the adult pornography website motherless.com, according to a statement from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

A video chat session was started by Brindley, who over the course of the chat sexually assaulted an 18-month-old boy and transmitted the video to detectives, who eventually discovered the man resided in Ocean County. The case, investigators say, was then immediately referred to local detectives who matched the man in the video to a New Jersey state driver's license.

By that night, a search warrant had been signed allowing detectives to go to  Brindley's home on Fieldcrest Drive, the prosecutor's office said.

Several items of digital evidence were seized, plus possible DNA evidence which was found by the Ocean County Sheriff's Department Criminal Investigation Unit.   A search warrant was also executed on Brindley's vehicle, where a GPS and cell phone were seized. 

Eventually, investigators tracked down the identity of the victim and used logs from the gated entrance to the community in which Brindley lived to match up timelines in order to confirm when the victim was at his home, the prosecutor's office said.

According to the criminal complaint, Brindley engaged in masturbation and oral sex with the boy and streamed the act online via a live chat.