TUPPER LAKE — A Tupper Lake man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession and distribution of child pornography following an investigation by the FBI and New York State Police.

Scott Barton, 30, of Tupper Lake, was sentenced on Wednesday to serve 120 months in prison by U.S. District Judge David Hurd.

He will be required to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison and will also have a 10-year term of supervised release.

When Barton pleaded guilty to the charges, he admitted that in July 2020 he used a messaging app on his phone to participate in a group chat where child pornography was being traded, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

As part of this group chat, the DOJ says Barton shared a video of child pornography to an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a member of the group. Barton also admitted that in November and December 2020, he possessed hundreds of videos and images of child pornography within a cloud storage account he maintained and controlled.

Barton was taken into custody in April 2021 and incarcerated at Albany County Correctional Facility.

His sentencing was announced by U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman and FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office Janeen DiGuiseppi. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Syracuse Mid-State Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes FBI special agents and State Police investigators from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Computer Crimes Unit.

The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrian LaRochelle as a part of Project Safe Childhood.

Project Safe Childhood was launched by the Department of Justice in 2006 to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet. The project is led by U.S. Attorney’s offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.