BOSTON – The former Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Lawrence was sentenced to three years and seven months in jail in federal court in Boston today for possessing and transporting child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced.
Jhovanny Martes-Rosario, 50, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dennis Saylor IV to 43 months in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Martes-Rosario pleaded guilty to one count of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography last December.
This case began with Martes-Rosario’s indictment by a federal grand jury in April 2023. Investigations revealed that he was the likely user of specific Yahoo and Apple accounts found to contain child pornography. Law enforcement executed a search at Martes-Rosario’s residence in February 2023, where they seized an iPad which contained numerous files of child pornography. Martes-Rosario confessed to owning the email addresses linked to the Yahoo and Apple accounts and admitted to downloading and storing child pornography on his personal iPad, subsequently transferring the material to his email for storage. He also admitted he had been searching for and storing child pornography for years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Martes-Rosario, a father of three, has a varied background in public service and education. He served as the Chief of Staff for Kendrys Vasquez, who was the acting mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, from 2021 to 2022. Prior to his role in city government, he taught science at Lawrence Public Schools and worked as a legislative aide at the State House. Additionally, he was a volunteer with AmeriCorps. His extensive experience in public service and education was emphasized in his campaign for City Council District E, as noted in a political flyer: “Jhovanny Martes is committed to representing District E with devotion and commitment, drawing on his experiences as a Senior Legislative Aide at the State House and a former teacher at Lawrence Public Schools.”
The United States Attorney Leah Foley, along with Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boston Division, and Colonel Geoffrey Noble, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, announced the sentencing. The Essex County District Attorney’s Office provided valuable assistance in the investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Suzanne Sullivan Jacobus of the Major Crimes Unit and Meghan C. Cleary of the Criminal Division, and it is part of Project Safe Childhood. This nationwide initiative, launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006, aims to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Project Safe Childhood coordinates efforts to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children and to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood and efforts to protect children from exploitation and abuse, visit the Department of Justice’s official site at https://www.justice.gov/psc.
