Former Boy Scouts Of American Camp Director Sentenced

FRESNO – United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced  that MICHAEL SHAWN CAREATTI, 38, of Bakersfield, California was sentenced today by the Honorable Oliver W. Wanger for one count of distributing and receiving visual depictions of the sexual exploitation of minors.

CAREATTI had been employed by the Boy Scouts of America and, at the time of his arrest, was working as a Scout Handler assigned to Camp Kern in Lakeshore, California.

CAREATTI previously had been the camp director. The court sentenced CAREATTI to a prison term of 87 months and a supervised release term of three years. The court noted that the number of the images involved in the offense justified the prison sentence, which was the top of the relevant sentencing range. CAREATTI has been in federal custody since his change of plea on May 8, 2006.

The case began when agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of its “Innocent Images” initiative, discovered a file-server program being operated by someone using the name “Marmmm88.” Agents were able to download twenty-two still images and one video file. The images depicted young boys engaged in explicit sexual activities with themselves and other persons, including adults.Several images depicted a young boy with arms and legs tied to a bed with a blanket covering his upper torso. Agents traced the file-server program to an address for a business named EntreSoft.

The manager of the building at which the business had operated told agents that CAREATTI had been evicted and that she had discovered pictures of “naked children” within the previously occupied premises.