Pinellas County Man Sentenced to Prison for Possession of Child PornographyTALLAHASSEE - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Pinellas County man was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for possession of child pornography. Joseph Cianico pleaded guilty to 20 counts of possession of child pornography in a case prosecuted by attorneys with the Attorney General's CyberCrime Unit. Cianico was arrested in February 2010 during Operation Broken Heart, a joint law enforcement sweep to fight cybercrime led by the Attorney General's Tampa CyberCrime Task Force. Investigators with the Attorney General's CyberCrime Unit, the Largo Police Department and the Clearwater Police Department confiscated three laptops and one desktop computer from Cianico's Largo home and discovered numerous images of child pornography. Some of the images discovered were of children appearing to be no older than four years old. Cianico was sentenced by Judge Thane Covert in Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit. In addition to his prison sentence, Cianico must serve 10 years of sex offender probation upon his release and will be required to register with the state as a sex offender.
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