A South Brunswick man who was charged last year in the multi-agency child protection initiative “Operation Safety Net” was sentenced to state prison on Jan. 4 for distributing child pornography on the internet.
Laurence Duque, 43, of Dayton, was sentenced to six years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibility, by Superior Court Judge Benjamin S. Bucca Jr. in Middlesex County, according to information provided by Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal.
Duque pleaded guilty on Oct. 26, 2018, to second-degree distribution of child pornography. He will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law and will be subject to parole supervision for life.
While monitoring a peer-to-peer network as part of Operation Safety Net, a detective of the Division of Criminal Justice downloaded numerous files of child pornography from a shared folder at an IP address that was subsequently traced to Duque, according to the statement. Members of the Division of Criminal Justice, South Brunswick Police Department, Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, and the New Jersey State Police executed a search warrant at Duque’s residence on Aug. 22, 2017.
Duque was arrested after investigators found numerous files of suspected child pornography on his computer equipment. A full forensic examination revealed over 4,000 files of suspected child pornography on the computer devices seized from his residence.
Duque became a fugitive in September 2017. He was apprehended in Penobscot, Maine, in June 2018 by the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, according to the statement.
Duque was among 79 child predators and child pornography offenders arrested in Operation Safety Net, a nine-month, multi-agency child protection operation conducted in 2017 by the New Jersey Regional ICAC Task Force, which is led by the New Jersey State Police and includes the Division of Criminal Justice, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, all 21 county prosecutors’ offices, and many other state, county and local law enforcement agencies. Ten alleged child predators were arrested, including eight New Jersey men, as well as men in California and Indiana who allegedly tried to have children transported interstate from New Jersey for them to sexually assault.