A 54-year-old Ithaca city employee charged with felony child Internet and pornography crimes admitted to having sexually explicit online chat sessions and phone conversations with undercover detectives he believed to be 13- and 14-year-old girls, according to a deposition he signed at the time of his arrest.
In the deposition, Foster S. Gray, of Auburn, waived his Miranda rights and said he sent child pornographic movies and nude images of himself to the detectives.
Written accusations filed by Ithaca and state police said the charges are based on their investigations and Gray's deposition, and Gray affirmed that the conversations, movies, pictures and chat sessions the detectives recorded, burned to compact discs and captured on their computer were his.
“I have reviewed these movies and images and I have signed the CD admitting that I did send the images and movies to (redacted) even though she was only fourteen,” Gray said at one point in his deposition. “I have signed and dated every page of the chat conversation, admitting that this is the conversation I had with (redacted) even though she had told me that she was only thirteen years old,” he states at another point.
Gray expressed remorse in his deposition, saying he knew the activities were illegal “and I am not sure why I continued.”
Ithaca and state police officers arrested Gray at a Third Street location on Wednesday morning and charged him with four counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child less than 17 years old and two counts of attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors in the first degree, city police officials said.
He committed the crimes while at the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Plant at 525 Third St. in Ithaca, they allege.
While Cumberland County, Pa., detectives said they first made contact with Gray in an Internet chat room on May 21, court documents accuse Gray of engaging in the chat and pornography crimes with an investigator he thought was a 14-year-old girl in May 2007, November 2007 and February. The pornographic video files depicted people less than 17-years-old, the papers allege.
State police and Pennsylvania detectives were investigating Internet crimes against children, according to an affidavit by one of the Pennsylvania investigators. On May 21, the investigator used a computer equipped with screen activity-recording software and an undercover account to chat with Gray as a 13-year-old girl.
Gray sent his name, place of employment, e-mail address and phone number, as well as 11 pornographic pictures, four of which showed him nude or partially nude, and a pornographic movie during the chat session, the affidavit alleges.
In several chat sessions in late June and early July, Gray sent more child and adult pornography and talked about being in love and visiting with one of the girls he thought was 13 years old, the affidavit alleges. In his deposition, Gray said he did these things in order to get “cybersex” but that he wasn't sincere about being in love, and that he chatted and sent the pornography from the computer he used while employed at the wastewater treatment plant.
State Police and Pennsylvania detectives developed Gray's identity information, and after a sexually explicit chat session in June, a female undercover officer assumed the identity of a 13-year-old girl and called Gray at work on a tapped phone, the affidavit said.
Saying he wanted to go to “an area of privacy” Gray put the detective on hold then got back on the line, made sexually explicit conversation and admitted he sent the pictures, the detectives allege. In the following days, Gray engaged in sexually explicit chat sessions, phone conversations and sent the detectives child pornographic movies, the affidavit said.
“This time I did send two movies which I consider to be child pornography,” Gray said about one of the chat sessions — an admission he made two more times in the deposition.
Gray was arraigned before Ithaca City Court Judge Judith Rossiter and released to appear with his attorney in court on Dec. 10 police and court officials said.
Ithaca city officials said Gray has worked for the city since 1987 and is “on an indefinite leave of absence.” His current job title is industrial wastewater pretreatment coordinator.
