Burlington Man Charged with Possession of Child Pornography

BURLINGTON -- Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Burlington Chief of Police Michael Kent have announced that William Gates, 40, of Burlington, was arraigned today in Middlesex Superior Court and charged with five counts of possession of child pornography.

Judge Laurence Pierce released the defendant on personal recognizance and ordered the defendant to have no unsupervised visits with children under the age of 18, to not work or volunteer with children under the age of 18, to not use the internet without supervision and only for employment purposes, to not photograph children under the age of 18 and to abide by any existing trespass orders from schools. The next scheduled hearing in this case is April 24.

In November of 2017 Homeland Security Investigators in Boston, received information from an Australian law enforcement agency that an unknown individual in the Boston-area may be engaged with a website known to law enforcement for sharing child pornography. Through their investigation authorities determined the identity of the person to be William Gates of Burlington.

During the investigation, multiple electronic devices were recovered from the defendant and his home in Burlington. Over 1,000 images of child pornography were found during forensic examinations on five separate devices.

These charges are allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The prosecutor assigned to this case is Assistant District Attorney Radu Brestyan.