A 27-year-old Cleveland, New York man has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found hundreds of child pornography files on his phone when he crossed back into the country from Canada in August 2024. Rylin Turley was sentenced Oct. 21, and a federal judge also ordered him to pay $18,500 in restitution to four victims.
According to syracuse.com, Turley was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border while returning from a day trip across the border. Border Protection officers reviewed his phone during that stop and discovered the material, the outlet reported. Turley admitted that he knowingly possessed 52 video files and 324 image files depicting child pornography on his phone, according to the same report.
The case traces back nearly a year before his arrest. Court filings reviewed through courtlistener.com and reporting from the same syracuse.com account describe how Turley admitted purchasing the files from another user he met through a social media messaging app in November 2023. After downloading them, he moved the files to another app on his phone and accessed them shortly before his arrest, the report states.
How the Case Moved Through Federal Court
Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Turley on Aug. 4, 2024, according to court records. A grand jury returned a two-count indictment with a forfeiture allegation against him on Aug. 29, 2024, per the same docket.
Those same court records show Turley made an initial appearance by video on Aug. 5, 2024, and was appointed a Federal Public Defender after a finding that he was financially unable to hire his own attorney. The government withdrew its detention motion on Aug. 8, and his release was ordered the following day; he later waived a preliminary hearing, which was approved Aug. 16, before the indictment came down at the end of that month.
Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes handed down the sentence, ordering the 37 months in prison, the decade of supervised release, and the $18,500 restitution payment split among four victims, the Syracuse.com report notes. Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection investigated the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. McCrobie prosecuted it as part of Project Safe Childhood, the report adds.
Federal Prosecutors Have Brought Similar Cases Across Upstate New York
Turley's case is one of several recent federal child pornography prosecutions moving through the Northern District of New York. The U.S. Attorney's Office previously announced that James Winston III, 28, of Utica, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for possession of child pornography, according to a statement posted on justice.gov.
In another case out of the Albany field office, Jonathan MacDonald, 33, of Menands, was sentenced on Oct. 2, 2026, to nine years' imprisonment followed by 15 years' supervised release for child pornography offenses, according to an announcement from the FBI's Albany field office. A separate defendant identified in FBI materials as Naing was sentenced to four years in federal prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $21,000 in restitution after obtaining child pornography through an internet-based social networking application installed on his phone, per the bureau's Albany office.
Data cited from the U.S. Sentencing Commission indicates that 46% of individuals sentenced nationally for child pornography offenses were sentenced for possession, compared with 44% for trafficking and 10% for receiving.
