Former ICE Chief Who Fought Child Porn Gets 70 Mos. For Having It
WEST PALM BEACH (CBSMiami) – The former chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami was sentenced Friday afternoon after he pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges.
Anthony Mangione, 52, was sentenced to 70 months – just under six years – in prison by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Mara in West Palm Beach. That was more than the five years sought by the defense, but less than the seven years that prosecutors asked for.
CBS4's Gary Nelson was the only South Florida reporter in the courtroom when this once powerful lawman was sentenced.
Mangione, his voice cracking, said, "I made a horrible mistake. I committed a terrible crime, and I have no one to blame but myself."
"I stand before you today in cuffs, feeling like I'm in a hole eight feet deep, under dirt. I put myself there," said Mangione.
Mangione was arrested in 2011 and charged with possessing, receiving and transporting child pornography using private Internet accounts on his laptop inside his Parkland home that April.
Assistant Attorney General Michael Grant said Mangione violated his public trust by violating the children.
"He was trading in a currency of suffering," Grant told the judge. "Every time he sent images out of these acts, he was re-victimizing these children."
U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra said, "This is a very sad case for a man who was a successful public servant, who committed a very horrible and horrific criminal act."
The screen names he used, prosecutors said, included BookStoreMomNC and Flasunguy33.
Prosecutors said between March and September of 2010 Mangione sent numerous emails of children between the ages of 3 and 15 in sexually suggestive poses.
One image, they said, depicted an eight-year-old girl in an elevator and another showed two boys under the age of ten.
When Mangione pled guilty in July, the judge told him that after he serves his time in federal prison, he'll have to register as a sex offender.
As the Special Agent in Charge of ICE's South Florida office, Mangione had been one of the leading local crusaders against child pornography, regularly vowing to hunt down people who exploit children.
