Former NY Choir Director Jailed After Sharing Child Porn Over Kik: Prosecutors

A former musical director at Long Island, New York's St. Agnes Cathedral was sentenced to jail after he shared child pornography on social media, prosecutors said.

Michael Wustrow, 59, was sentenced Wednesday to 72 months in prison for receiving child pornography, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Jacquelyn M. Kasulis said in a statement.

The former choir director, who pleaded guilty to the charge in 2019, also told authorities he had sex with several minor boys, the New York Daily News reported.

U.S. District Judge Denis R. Hurley, during Wustrow's Wednesday sentencing in federal court in Central Islip, also required the elderly man to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.

Undercover law enforcement officers first engaged with Wustrow in June 2016 through the messenger Kik. Wustrow — who used the username "pervdad516,,," — shared photos of child pornography and discussed the subject with undercover officers through the app.

Wustrow reportedly told an undercover officer once that he got to "play" with boys aged 15 and 17, according to the New York Daily News report. He also bragged about having sex with 16- and 17-year-old boys without a condom.

Wustrow was co-director of music at St. Agnes Cathedral until 2017, when his computer was seized during an FBI raid.

A search of Wustrow's phone revealed child pornography and Kik conversations where he asked other users to send him more illegal photos and videos. One of the child pornography images was a picture of a toddler being abused by an adult male, which Wustrow received from Kik.

Wustrow also admitted to looking for young men on the dating app Grindr after the raid.

Federal prosecutors argued Wustrow's statements of having unprotected sex with teens, whom he likely did not inform of his HIV, made him a danger to the community, court transcripts showed.

"Mr. Wustrow's actions, and the material he collected, are a shock to our collective conscience. Thankfully, he's now headed to federal prison where he will no longer be a danger to the innocent children who have no ability to protect themselves from evil," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael J. Driscoll, who announced Wustrow's sentence with Kasulis, was quoted as saying.