Cops: Sex offender sent porn to undercover cop

Nassau police say Jason Austin Zimmerman, 33, of Elizabethville, PA, carried on a four-month relationship with an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old. Zimmerman, a convicted sex offender, sent indecent pictures and used a live Web camera feed, police said. Now, Zimmerman, 33, has been brought to Nassau County to be arraigned on 22 criminal counts, including child endangerment and dissemination of indecent material to a child, police said. (Handout / November 21, 2008)

During a four-month relationship online, a Pennsylvania child molester thought he was messaging with a 14-year-old.

Actually, the felon, Jason Austin Zimmerman, was sending indecent pictures and a live Web camera feed to an undercover Nassau police detective masquerading as the teenager, authorities said Friday.

Zimmerman, 33, was brought to Nassau County and arraigned on 22 criminal counts, including child endangerment and dissemination of indecent material to a child, police said.

Zimmerman pleaded not guilty and was ordered held on $700,000 bail. Zimmerman is represented by an attorney from the Legal Aid Society, and is due back in court Tuesday.

Zimmerman, a registered sex offender from Elizabethville, had been on probation in Pennsylvania for an earlier conviction for child pornography and sexual abuse of a child, a Nassau police spokeswoman said.

He was convicted Aug. 6, 2007, in Pennsylvania on the child sex abuse charges, according to the state's records.

The risqué communication between Zimmerman and who he thought was a 14-year-old -- police said their policy is not to disclose the sex the detective pretends to be -- took place between September 2007 and January 2008, police said.

Because of the Nassau investigation's findings, Pennsylvania authorities revoked Zimmerman's probation and sentenced him to 4 to 14 years in prison, the Nassau spokeswoman said.

Nassau police arrested Zimmerman at a Pennsylvania prison.

By TTHEW CHAYES |
Posted Friday, November 21, 2008

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