A Waverly man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for sexually exploiting a child and transporting child pornography, federal prosecutors announced Monday.
Tristan Kovacs, 23, also received 15 years of supervised release after prison and must register as a sex offender, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.
As part of his guilty plea, Kovacs admitted photographing himself sexually exploiting a 10-year-old child in April 2025 and uploading the photograph to a pornography website, prosecutors said.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Brindisi imposed the sentence.
The FBI Albany Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force and State Police investigated, with assistance from the Waverly Police Department and Broome County Sheriff’s Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrian LaRochelle prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, the Justice Department initiative that coordinates federal, state and local efforts against child sexual exploitation.
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