By Wayne Gates
A Hamersville man is facing 29 state charges relating to child rape and child pornography.
54 year old Wayne Cusimano has been in the Butler County Jail on similar federal charges since October of 2018. He was arrested by federal agents following an investigation regarding the sharing of child pornography through social media apps.
His federal charges are two counts of Distributing Child Pornography, one count of Statements or Entries Generally (lying to investigators), and one count of Tampering with a Witness.
The state charges include nine counts of first degree felony Rape involving one victim over a four year period.
He also faces ten counts of Pandering Sexually-Oriented Matter Involving a Minor, which is a second degree felony; and ten counts of Illegal Use of a Minor in Nudity-Oriented Material or Performance, which is also a second degree felony.
“This all started with a federal investigation,” said Brown County Prosecutor Zac Corbin.
“They keep an eye out for the dissemination of child pornography on different social media sites and apps.”
In a federal criminal complaint, Homeland Security Investigator Christopher Wallace laid out to the court the federal allegations against Cusimano.
The case began when an undercover agent from New York contacted Wallace in February of 2018, with information that someone in Hamersville was posting child pornography on the Kik Messenger app.
The agent noted that a Kik user by the name of “wayzombie” was posting child pornography. When Kik was presented with a search warrant for the user information for “wayzombie” it was traced back to a gmail account in the name of “wcusimano777”. The IP address was traced to Cusimano’s address after a summons to his internet service provider.
In September of that year, another investigator in North Carolina noted a number of pornographic videos and images containing children were being posted to Kik messenger. The IP address returned to Cusimano’s registered address for his Ohio driver’s license.
“Federal agents and members of the Brown County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant on Mr. Cusimano’s residence in October of 2018. They seized a lot of electronic devices and found child pornography,” Corbin said.
Once the investigation began, Corbin said that allegations were made that opened up the state case.
“A family member of Cusimano indicated that Cusimano had sexually victimized them,” Corbin said.
The allegation is that the abuse began when the child was under ten years old and continued for a number of years, leading to the Rape charges.
Corbin said that a number of factors will determine how the case progresses from here.
“I expect that he will be appointed a public defender in state court who can then reach out to his federal public defender to talk about a possible resolution.”
Corbin said that Cusimano’s case will proceed on the federal level before moving to state court.
Given his age and the combination of federal and state charges, Corbin said it is likely that Cusimano will die in prison.
“It’s a lot of exposure. When you take all of the charges in federal and state court, it can certainly result in life in prison, Corbin said.
Three of the nine state Rape charges faced by Cusimano carry a possible penalty of life in prison without parole. The other six are 25 to life in prison.