A former victim services advocate for the Hartford Superior Court in Hartford has been sentenced to nine years for distributing images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children according to federal officials.
Robert Eccleston, 58, of Canton, was sentenced Monday to nine years imprisonment, followed by 10 years of supervised release, according to Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and David Sundberg, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
They said covert FBI personnel in two different field offices outside of Connecticut were monitoring several public groups on Kik and in August and September 2020, Eccleston, using the Kik usernames “hartfordctguy” and “Mowgli100,” distributed numerous pornographic images and videos of children in these Kik groups, including images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of toddlers and prepubescent children.
Eccleston, they said, also served as an administrator of two Kik groups and required prospective members to send him videos of child sexual abuse for group access.
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When Eccleston was arrested on Dec. 11, 2020, he was a victim services advocate for the Hartford Superior Court in Hartford, according to federal officials. He pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography on Jan. 24, according to federal officials.
Eccleston has been ordered to pay a total of $25,000 to four victims, $35,000 to the Child Pornography Victims Reserve, $5,000 to the Domestic Trafficking Victims Fund, and a $30,000 fine.
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