CONCORD — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - New Hampshire), published as received.
CONCORD – Swanzey man David MacLean, 78, pleaded guilty today in federal court to one count of failing to register as a sex offender as required by the federal law, U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan announces. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph N. Laplante scheduled MacLean’s sentencing for December 3, 2026.
According to the court documents and statements made in court, the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”) requires individuals convicted of certain sex offenses to register as a sex offender in the state in which they reside or work. Among other things, SORNA requires sex offenders to register their online identifiers such as email addresses and online accounts and usernames. MacLean is required to register as a sex offender under SORNA due to his 2018 conviction for possessing child sex abuse material (“CSAM”).
The defendant was released from prison in January 2021 and registered as a sex offender in November 2021, listing only one online identifier, a Yahoo email address. While under court supervision, MacLean admitted to his probation officer that he used an AI (or “Artificial Intelligence”) image generator to create an AI CSAM image, which he later deleted. A subsequent criminal investigation revealed that the defendant in fact subscribed to an AI generator website and that he had multiple unregistered online identifiers, including for Facebook, X, and Reddit. For example, investigators searched MacLean’s iPad, where they found evidence of MacLean’s use of these online identifiers, including a CSAM video in the “cache” data for MacLean’s Reddit Application. This data indicates that MacLean accessed this video through the Reddit Application and his unregistered Reddit account. MacLean knew he was required to register his online identifiers, including those he used for illicit conduct, yet he never reported these online identifiers in his sex offender registration paperwork.
The charge of failure to register carries a sentence of up to 10 years incarceration, at least 5 years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
The United States Marshals Service investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew T. Hunter is prosecuting the case. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
