An Italian native, formerly of Marple Township, pleaded guilty to child porn possession likely to be deported as ‘Italy’s problem’

An Italian man who pleaded guilty in August to nine counts of possessing child pornography was sentenced Wednesday to 11½ to 23 months in the county jail with immediate parole.

Manuel Sorrentino, 40, formerly of the 2400 block of West Chester Pike in Marple Township, is being held on detainer by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and is expected to be deported without the ability to return to the United States upon his release from jail.

Sorrentino was caught up in a 2021 federal probe of a South Korea-based dark website called Welcome 2 Video, where users could upload and download child pornography using a bitcoin or points system as currency.

According to an affidavit of probable cause for his arrest written by Eric Barlow, an agent with the Office of the Attorney General’s Child Predator Sector:

One of the approximately 2,700 users on W2V was identified as Sorrentino through an investigation and investigators served a search warrant at his home in the Broomall section of the township on May 21, 2021.

Sorrentino told the agents he had entered the country from Italy in 2017 on a student visa and had previously lived in Wayne, moving to Broomall about a year before. He indicated he was trying to establish legal permanent residency through marriage to his current wife.

He provided a previous address in Rome, as well as email addresses he used, both of which were matched to information gleaned from subscriber records on the Welcome 2 Video site, along with other identifiers.

Sorrentino told investigators there were two laptops and two cellphones in the home, one of each belonging to him and his wife. The wife told agents there was an older laptop in the house, as well.

When confronted with this discrepancy, Sorrentino acknowledged having an older, unused Lenovo laptop he claimed to have bought used in Italy in 2016.

When confronted with investigative logs into W2V, however, Sorrentino admitted to having downloaded child pornography between 2016 and 2017.

He said that he only downloaded child sexual exploitation material at the suggestion of a friend, and that the images he looked at were females no younger than 12 or 13. He said he never produced any such materials himself.

“Sorrentino claimed he knew that what he did was problematic, but he suffered from emotional problems related to his military service that caused him to make mistakes during that time frame,” the affidavit states. “Sorrentino claimed he had viewed no materials since that time frame when he downloaded child exploitation materials mostly while living in Italy, and also during a brief 2016 vacation to the United States.”

The electronic devices in the home were searched with Sorrentino’s consent and revealed nine videos of female children engaged in prohibited sexual acts including indecent contact.

Eight of those contained explicit sexual material that included some form of intercourse with adult males or other minors, and one video depicted an adult penetrating a minor female with an object.

All of the videos are in violation of state law prohibiting the sexual abuse of children.

Online court records indicate Sorrentino was charged Dec. 12, 2024, and posted $10,000 cash bail the following day.

Defense attorney Zak Goldberg said Wednesday that his client had actually been in custody for about two years, all told, including approximately 13 months in Italy from 2023 to 2024 while awaiting extradition, and then at various points after returning to the United States.

Sorrentino entered open pleas on Aug. 27 to all nine counts before Common Pleas Court Judge Deborah Krull.

He had already waived a preliminary hearing and bail was revoked July 15 at the suggestion of Goldberg, so that it would not be an issue in calculating time served.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Zachary Mills Wynkoop said the state Sexual Offender Assessment Board had determined Sorrentino does not meet the criteria for a sexually violent predator, but he would have to register as a sexual offender under Megan’s Law for 15 years under the law.

Wynkoop indicated the detainer meant that Sorrentino would instead become “Italy’s problem,” but it was important to note exactly what he had done and what his actions helped perpetuate, as the victims depicted in the videos he purchased using bitcoin will likely never have their day in court.

“These young women are all over the world. They are assaulted because men like Manuel Sorrentino are willing to pay to watch them be assaulted,” Wynkoop said. “Demand drives the market, just like any other good or service. It is demand (that) drives the market and creates an economy where these children are assaulted, and he played a direct and substantial role in continuing supporting and maintaining the economy of the sexual abuse of children, and before he is deported from our country, he ought to know that.”

Sorrentino said that he is deeply sorry and disgusted with his actions, but added it is well documented that he was not a well man at the time.

“This is not who I am,” he told the judge. “I am a loving father and a loving husband, and I want to go back home and be together with my family. This is definitely never, never, never going to happen again. I truly and fully understand what I did.”

Judge Krull said that, while sex offender registration and other American legal system enforcements will not extend overseas, she hoped that Sorrentino will seek the therapy that evaluations suggested he receive.

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