Ohio man gets 72 month for possession of child sex abuse images

BANGOR, Maine - An Ohio man was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor for possessing child pornography.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lance E. Walker sentenced Andrew Ladich-McGrew, 28, to 72 months in prison followed by six years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $28,000 in restitution.

According to court records, in June 2020, investigators with Maine State Police and Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant at an apartment Ladich-McGrew was renting in Presque Isle. The search warrant was based on a report by electronic service provider Discord that Ladich-McGrew's account was involved in the possession of sexually explicit images of children under the age of 16.

Discord is an online communication platform that, among other functions, allows users to communicate with text-based chats and to send and receive media files. During the initial investigation, images and videos were found on an online storage drive connected to Ladich-McGrew's computer. In November 2020, a second investigation was launched, leading investigators to a computer that contained multiple files of child sexual abuse material. As with the external hard drive, the images included children as young as three years old being sexually abused. At the time of his arrest, Ladich-McGrew was living in Ohio.

HSI and the Maine State Police investigated the case.