Man gets year in jail for sending obscene photo to officer

Jan. 27—NEWBURY — A Leominster man will spend up to a year in jail after admitting Wednesday he sent a nude photo to an undercover detective in 2020.

James Quinn MacDonald, 27, pleaded guilty to sending obscene matter to a minor and distributing obscene matter and saw Newburyport District Court Judge William Martin sentence him to 2 1/2 years in jail with one year to be served.

The balance of his sentence was suspended for two years while he is on probation. MacDonald was given credit for time served since June 1.

During MacDonald's time on probation, he must have no contact with anyone under 18 years old, register as a sex offender with the state, and not use social media.

MacDonald was arraigned on the charges June 1 and ordered held on $5,000 cash bail. He has remained in custody since then because he was on probation for an earlier offense out of Leominster District Court, according to court records.

It was through social media that he made contact with Newbury police Detective Sgt. Aaron Wojtkowski in August 2020 when Wojtkowski was posing as a 14-year-old girl on a "popular social media platform," later identified as Facebook, according to the detective's report.

Wojtkowski gathered more information about MacDonald, including a photo, and where he lived and worked, by visiting his profile on the same site.

For weeks, MacDonald "expressed a sexual interest in the UC (undercover officer) making several references to illicit sexual conduct including sexual intercourse," Wojtkowski wrote in his report

Eventually, MacDonald sent the detective a sexually explicit photo of a man's genitals on Aug. 30, 2020, according to the report.

During their interaction, Wojtkowski repeatedly told MacDonald he was speaking to a 14-year-old girl only for MacDonald to continue making sexual references.

Wojtkowski did some digging and learned MacDonald lived in Leominster and was on probation in that town until next month. He also obtained MacDonald's phone number and matched the social media photo with his driver's license photo.

In early December 2020, Wojtkowski and then-Salisbury police Detective Keith Forget went to MacDonald's Leominster home to speak to him but no one was there.

Wojtkowski then called MacDonald and left a message. MacDonald called back the same day and said he had lost his phone months earlier and someone was using his account as a cover, according to Wojtkowski.

Based on MacDonald's claim and actions, Wojtkowski obtained a search warrant to gather his Facebook data during the time the two chatted. The detective learned MacDonald deleted his account after speaking to Wojtkowski.

"Suspects do this in an attempt to disrupt law enforcement's ongoing investigation into, or discovery of, criminal activity,"Wojtkowski wrote in his report.

A deeper look at the Facebook data showed MacDonald had sent nude photos to other people, including a 17-year-old girl.

"Based on my review of the conversations between MacDonald and the parties, I surmised that the information being shared by MacDonald would be only known to him and not to an unknown party who had gained access to his account," Wojtkowski wrote in his report.

Dave Rogers is a reporter with the Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: drogers@newburyportnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @drogers41008.

Dave Rogers is a reporter with the Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: drogers@newburyportnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @drogers41008.