Man sentenced to prison for enticing minors online

A man who authorities say used a false online person to solicit sexually explicit videos from a number of teenage boys has been sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison.

Paul J. Stabile, 39, received the 151-month sentence Sept. 26 in U.S. District Court, according to a statement from the office of U.S. Attorney Aaron L. Weisman. His prison term will be followed by lifetime supervised release.

Stabile pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of inducement of a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity and possession of child pornography.

According to prosecutors, the investigation that led to the charges against Stabile began in December 2017 when the mother of a 14-year-old boy from Nevada contacted the FBI regarding her son being the victim of online enticement.

Authorities say the investigation found that Stabile used the online persona of “Cindi Mennillo” – presented as a 16-year-old girl from Newport – to convince boys between the ages of 13 and 15 to “engage in explicit sexual activity in live stream videos over Facebook Messenger and Skype.”

Stabile is said to have falsely told the Nevada boy with whom he was communicating that “Cindi” was unable to provide reciprocal video due to technical issues. Instead, he is said to have sent “images, both pornographic and non-pornographic, of an athletic young female purported to be ‘Cindi.’”

In November 2018, authorities executed a court-authorized search warrant Stabile’s home, which resulted in the seizure of multiple computers and digital media devices. A forensic audit of those devices uncovered “hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, including videos of dozens of young teenage boys performing a sex act in a similar manner to the Nevada-based minor victim,” the statement reads.

The Rhode Island State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Warwick and Cranston police, and the Washoe County Sherriff’s Department in Nevada assisted the FBI with the investigation, according to Weisman’s office.

Traffic stop yields cocaine, $13K in cash

An ongoing investigation into the distribution of cocaine in the city led to the Sept. 25 arrest of a Central Falls man, according to Cranston Police.

David Leite, 41, is charged with one count of manufacturing/possession/delivery of cocaine, one ounce to one kilogram, police said in a statement. He was arraigned in Third Division District Court and ordered held without bail pending an Oct. 3 court hearing.

Police say a rental vehicle driven by Leite was stopped on Sept. 25 as part of an “ongoing investigation into an individual suspected of distributing large amount of ‘crack’ and powder cocaine” in the city. A search of the vehicle is said to have uncovered 39.5 grams of crack cocaine, 12.4 grams of powder cocaine and more than $13,000 in cash.

“Detectives placed Mr. Leite David under arrest and with the assistance of detectives from the Central Falls Police Department executed a court-authorized search warrant at his residence,” a statement from police reads. “An additional amount of unknown powder was seized at this location which will be submitted to the Rhode Island Department of Health Toxicology Lab for testing.”

--Daniel Kittredge