Law&Crime Sidebar - Chiropractor Admits to Having 1000+ Child Porn Images

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

John Boyle, a former chiropractor with his own practice in Kingston, New York, is facing prison time after entering a guilty plea to horrific charges. Boyle admitted to possessing and promoting child sexual abuse material. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses Boyle’s sentence, as well as the charges his wife Danielle still faces, with criminal defense attorney Joe Tamburino.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you received Depo-Provera birth control shots and were later diagnosed with a brain or spinal tumor called meningioma, you may be eligible for a lawsuit. Visit https://forthepeople.com/lcdepo to start a claim now!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A New York chiropractor known for sharing tips and tricks to promote his business online, while now he faces prison time after he entered a guilty plea to possessing and promoting child sexual abuse material. And the allegations leveled against him that reveal what he was reportedly sharing are some of the worst we have ever heard. heard. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody. This is another law and crime legal alert. If you received Depro-Provera birth control shots and were later diagnosed with a brain or spinal tumor called meningioma,

you may be eligible for a lawsuit. That's right. Morgan and Morgan, they're investigating claims that patients weren't properly warned about this risk. It's free to check. Just takes a few minutes and you don't pay unless they win. So scan the QR code on screen, click the link below or go to for the people.com slash LC Depot to see if you qualify. A big update for you on a story that we first brought you here on Sidebar back in March. 34-year-old John Boyle, a one-time chiropractor with a growing business in New York, admitted that he possessed and shared child sexual abuse material. And right now, his wife, Danielle, still faces her own horrific charges.

Talk about the case. Talk about possible punishments. I want to bring in criminal defense attorney Joe Tamborino. Joe, thanks so much for coming here on Sidebar. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. How are you? I'm good, except for this case.

I mean, the allegations here are so disgusting, so heinous. Is it typical for cases involving child sexual abuse material, possession, sharing of it to plead out? Or does it usually go to trial? almost always they plead out and here's why they have the evidence the authorities get the evidence through tips search warrants and then when they go to the house or the business or whatever it is and they grab all of the electronics there is the evidence it's kryptonite you cannot touch child porn as soon as you do it is illegal so most of these cases plead out and it's also i imagine an advantage for the prosecution because they don't want to have to put they don't want to have to have

jurors sit through a case like this because the jurors would have to see the material they'd have to see it and it may be potentially having the victim or victims have to testify as well right the the prosecutions of the perspective is there any way we can avoid this at all costs yes the prosecutors do want to avoid it because you will have to show these materials they're so disgusting to the jury not necessarily that you'd have to get the actual victims because you know like in this case, there are so many victims who are around the age of four years old. That's going to be readily apparent that they're a juvenile. True. In some cases where you might have images where people are, say, 16 or 17, yes, might they be over 18? It would be hard to make that

determination for a jury sometimes. But in this case, with the images showing children who are just very young, I doubt you would have to call the victims. By the way, this case aside, generally speaking, sexual abuse material. If there is material of a minor that's circulating somewhere or you have a defendant who is in possession of it, by law, do authorities, do prosecutors have to inform the children's parents or the children's guardians? Do they have to let them know we discovered this? Because I imagine that is a very, very difficult conversation to have. Yes, they have to let them know. Every state, including the federal government has rules, laws, on basically victim rights. And one of those is that a victim and a victim's

family in situations involving children, they have to be informed of what's happening in the process. They have to be informed what the charges are, the court dates, what are the court dates about, whether there's going to be a trial, plea bargaining, and ultimately sentencing because they have a right to speak. Now, in most of these child porn cases, by far the majority, you can't identify the victims. It usually is the case where it's very difficult to identify the victims. Now, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is a wonderful organization, I believe it started in 1986, you know, after like, you know, Adam Walsh, Eton Potts was abducted and they weren't found. After those type of horrific cases happen, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they do a great job

of getting information and giving it to the police so that people could be prosecuted and they try to identify the victims. But again, it's very difficult to. Yeah, we're going to talk about them in a minute. It's an incredible organization. But you go back here. Let me talk about Boyle. So Boyle owned and operated Boyle family chiropractic in Kingston when he was arrested earlier this year. And the Ulster County's assistant district attorney told the Times Union at the time that an investigation actually started last.

year. And this was thanks to a tip from you said it before, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And the tip involved a sexually explicit photo of a girl between the ages of, get this, 11 and 13, which was apparently shared on the social media platform Snapchat. So police, they ended up apparently tracing the account to Boyle's IP address. By the way, let me stop right there. Any way from a defense point of view to say that that data is not accurate, Joe? I mean, how concrete is it to track a social media account, to track a computer, to track it back to the IP address, an online account back to the IP address of an individual? It's devastating for the defense because there really is no defense except for two things.

And again, it's in the minority of situations. Number one, you have some evidence that somebody planted that. That wasn't up to you. Somebody actually actually put that material onto your electronics through your IP address. I mean, that just so rarely ever happens. Second, you do have the defense of, well, it's my IP address. It is my electronics, but I wasn't the one who downloaded them. I was at work during the day. Someone else must have downloaded them.

So those are really the only two defenses you have. But again, those are in the minority of cases. As soon as the authorities, whether it's state or federal, get the search warrant, find your IP address, find what you've been searching, and then they get into what you've downloaded, saved, and otherwise, yes, it's very difficult to defend against that. And the National Center, Nick Mick, as it's also known, flagged another set of photos, again, of a young girl, but this time, between the ages of 10 and 13. Now, Boyle had allegedly shared those on an adult chat website called Flingster,

according to the Times Union, Boyle also used messaging apps like Session and Telegram to share images and videos with his wife and what were referred to as, quote, additional unknown parties. According to investigators, the images were created at this Airbnb in Florida where Boyle and his wife stayed in August of 2023. And get this, the Times Union reports that Boyle even left a review of the Airbnb, which certainly ties him back to that location, Joe, right? I mean, You can't make that up? Yeah, it is hard to believe. But he's also, and his wife, very lucky that the federal authorities didn't take this case.

Two things. Number one, child pornography through the internet always is federal jurisdiction. If the feds want to come in on a case, they can. Number two, he traveled across state lines in order to produce or obtain the pornography, the child pornography, also federal jurisdiction. And in the federal jurisdiction, in federal courts, many of these types of cases have 10-year mandatory minimums. Now, I don't know if this one would qualify for that because I don't know a lot about the case except for what the charges are in the surrounding circumstances,

but he's lucky that he didn't get into federal court. Joe, yeah, there are entire task forces focused on taking down people creating and sharing child sexual abuse material. I understand the DOJ's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. They work alongside law enforcement. When you think about that, Is that typically how a case like this unfolds, how these predators are caught? Yes, many times there'll be tips that are sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Also, that center will literally look through the Internet. We'll try to see if there are images of children out there, and then they'll follow up with it, and then they'll try to identify the children, and then they'll report it to law enforcement.

So many cases start that way. Other ways cases start are simply file sharing. somebody will share some of these images with someone else and that other person either gets caught or someone, you know, reports on them and it comes back to the original person who disseminated it. So many of those cases start on tips, simply looking through the internet and someone getting caught who a person received an image. Let's talk about that because the images and videos, as I said, were shared with, quote, additional unknown parties. What does that mean? Well, they just don't want to identify them. I'm sure the authorities know who these other parties are.

But there could be ongoing investigations because many times you don't just want to rush in and arrest the person. Why? Because you want to see where they're getting this information and you want to see where they're sending the information. It's just like drug dealing. Many times when you catch that guy who has a pound of cocaine, you don't just simply arrest him. You try to use him and use his information to get to people. who gave him the cocaine same thing in this kind of area is it also but the legal point of view if they were sent something and they open it up and oh my gosh i wasn't

expecting this they delete it or they don't delete it but they don't share it is are they still committing a crime are they still liable uh no if it just pops on your screen because someone sent you something you immediately delete it you didn't do anything to show dominion and control over it no then you're not going to be guilty and because possession is about dominion and control and I give this example on child porn cases if you're walking down the street and you see a magazine and you pick it up and you open it up and by golly there's child porn and you simply just drop it and move on that's not possession but take that same example and you pick up the magazine you see that it's child porn and you put it in your

pocket and you walk a couple of blocks that's possession so if they did something with the material if they stored it they manipulated it they shared it they Yeah, that's when you get into trouble. So this could be an ongoing investigation. So in other words, unknown parties, is it possible? You're saying they probably know who they are. These are continuing investigations that may lead to additional arrests and additional charges, right? That's what you're suggesting.

Yes, that's correct. Because, you know, the authorities want to stop this, obviously. And the way to do it is to continue these investigations to find out the sources of these images and put a stop to it. Now I get into the tough part. I got to get into what this material actually was. So let me just apologize at the outset for this, but a search warrant was filed in October of 2024. According to the ADA in this matter, investigators found more than 1,300 photos and 811 videos showing child sexual abuse. And I don't want to get too graphic, but there were hundreds of photos, according to police. that showed infants, toddlers, some in bondage, other images showed sexual acts with animals,

and at least four images even depicted child necrophilia. So sadistic, disgusting stuff here. Joe, from a defense point of view, is there any way? I mean, by the end of this investigation, when you think about sickest content I think I've ever discussed, do they ever say there's some benign reason for having this? Rarely do you ever hear that. I mean, what's happening in the Boyle case is something that I think most defense attorneys would do, which is try to work out a plea agreement, no doubt about it. Now, the plea agreement he has in his case appears to be that he is going to prison for

at least six years and eight months, approximately, but he could go to prison for up to 20 years. And that's all going to be dependent upon the judge. There's really no benign reason to have this type of material. Rather, what you try to show through the defense side is you get your client a psychosexual evaluation, which is basically a psychological evaluation, but looking at, you know, things like sex and pornography and other areas. And you try to show the court that, you know, your client is still redeemable to certain degree. Yes, he's going to have to serve some prison, but he shouldn't serve the full 20 years. That's how you try to set the case up. Well, on Friday the 13th, nonetheless, Boyle entered a guilty plea to four charges.

This is according to the district attorney's office. This was promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child, promoting a sexual performance by a child, possessing an obscene sexual performance by a child, and possessing a sexual performance by a child. And those possession charges, our understanding, are class E felonies. The charges of promoting sexual performances are de-felonies. And according to New York State's criminal statute for a class, D felony, the term shall be affixed by the court and shall not exceed seven years. And for a class E felony, the term shall be affixed by the court and shall not exceed four

years. Now, Boyle's attorney, Vincent Scala, told the Times Union that as part of an arrangement with prosecutors, Boyle is going to serve between six and 20 years in prison. Joe, I got to say, for what I said before, some of the most disgusting content I've ever heard in my entire life. Could that end up being a very short time? It doesn't seem very long considering what the charges are what he had in his possession. Well, that's correct. I mean, for something like this, especially if he produced it, it means manufactured it. Six years would be a short time. But I don't think he's going to just get six years in this case.

When you have such a range of six years to 20 years, that gives the judge a lot of leeway and freedom to impose exactly what the judge wants to impose. So I would imagine he's going to get more than six years. I would guess he's going to get about 10. Can the judge deviate in the sense, can the judge go beyond 20 years? No, because when you have a plea agreement and the judge accepts that agreement, that's the range, six to 20 years. A judge doesn't have to accept a plea agreement. A judge could say, look, you want to plead guilty. That's fine, but all sentencing is up to me. However, When a judge says, yes, I will accept your plea of guilty. I'll accept the plea agreement.

Then the court's going to be bound by it. You talk about mitigating factors, right? Something for the court to consider. So Mr. Scala, again, represents the defendant here. Boyle, told the Times Union that Boyle's actions were, quote, brief errors in judgment, for which he is deeply remorseful. They were errors in judgment. But John Boyle is a good man, an honest man, a devoted husband and father, and a good chiropractor.

You think that's going to have a lot of sway? No. what they should be doing, and perhaps they are behind the scenes, is getting psychological or psychosexual evaluations. Because when you go to the judge in cases like this, you just, it's hard to just say, well, this was a lapse in judgment. No, because, you know, to get this material, you have to go on the web, you have to seek it out, you have to trade in it, you have to start collecting all these images. So it's more than just a lapse. We're filming it, right? We're filming it, quite, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's,

It's more than just a lapse in judgment because there's a lot of planning. There's a lot of work to this. So rather what you need to show the judge is why psychologically your client, the defendant, did this and try to show the court that there's still light at the end of the tunnel, that this person shouldn't just be discarded and sent to prison for 20 years because he does have some redeeming qualities and can be treated. Now here's the thing. Boyle family chiropractic.

This was once a popular practice in the case. Kingston community for people of all ages. And now it's been closed since Boyle's arrest in March. His sentencing is scheduled for September. He posted a $200,000 bond at his arraignment back in March was released on that bond pending sentencing. Before we talk about his wife, though, this is somebody who's part of the community, Joe. Any way to know what lurks in our community, any way to know this? I mean, that's one of the scary parts about this. It's not some guy living in his basement. This is a guy who was, you know, seemingly an upstanding member of the community, had a practice.

How do you guard against stuff like this? Well, it's impossible to guard against it. The only thing that you could do is, again, like with something with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, is be vigilant about it. Look on the Internet. Take tips from other people. But in terms of actually guarding against it to say, well, we're going to stop this from happening in our community, That's impossible. That's almost impossible.

Okay, so let's talk about the wife. Let's talk about Boyle's wife, Danielle Schofield Boyle. In November, months before her husband was accused of possessing child's sexual abuse material, she was charged with two felony counts of possession of a sexual performance by a child less than 17. Then in March, she was hit with another felony, a charge of promoting a sexual performance by a child less than 17. It's unclear why only she was charged at first, but as far as her next quarter hearing goes, that appears to kind of be up in the air. She had previously been released on her own recognizance, and the DA's office told the Daily Freeman

that Schofield Boyle isn't scheduled on the court docket yet. Joe, first of all, why is that the case? Why might that be? Why don't we have more information about this? Well, not everything that you hear in court is divulged to the public, meaning that you're just going to get a piece of it because what happens in court is public,

but there's a bigger iceberg under that tip. So many times in these investigations, the public's not aware of what else is out there. And what I would suspect is that Mr. Boyle is being treated as the main culprit in this case by the prosecutors. And Mrs. Boyle is being treated as a secondary type of defendant, someone who has less culpability. That's the way it seems to me, which is common in many cases. You'll see that, again, analogizing this to drug cases, you'll see that in drug cases, where there's the number one person, the person that's doing most of the drug dealing, but then there's number two or number three who is part of it, but not doing as much as number

one. So that could be the case, that she's just not as involved as Mr. Boyle. Could it also be? Can he be compelled to testify against her? I mean, it's a weird kind of limbo phase, right? He's about to be sentenced, pled guilty. Did he work out a deal where he's got to testify against her? Maybe she was more in the driver's seat? I don't know. But they're also husband and wife. I don't know exactly how this would work. There is a privilege at play. There's only a privilege in most states if it's not a crime that they did in concert together, or it's not a crime that involves, say, domestic abuse. You know, like look at domestic abuse. You have a husband, you have a wife. He's charged with beating her up. Can she testify against him?

Absolutely. The privilege doesn't apply. Or you have a husband and a wife and they're co-dron. drug dealers, cold child pornographers, co-conspirators in whatever type of crime. In most states, the privilege is not going to apply. But there's also the flip side to that coin that you just mentioned, if he's going to be giving information against her. There could also be a deal worked out where he's partly exonerating her, you know, where he comes in and says, look, this was all me. Yes, she had something to do with it, but it was a much lower level than what I was working on.

Would they have been tried separately or together if he didn't plead guilty? In a lot of states, not every state, you would be tried jointly. And it all depends. New York has a lot of joint trials. I'm not licensed in New York, but I mean, I know a bit of it. In other states like in Minnesota, you wouldn't have a joint trial because there's a presumption of separate trials. So it depends on the state. But many times they would be tried jointly.

And a statement, Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel Nenge, apologize if I'm mispronouncing last name there, said that Boyle's plea, quote, brings near to a close of very traumatic revelation in our community that one loved and trusted by many in Kingston lived a private life so abhorrent in law and morality. Continued, hopefully his plea sends a strong message dissuading those harboring intentions to perpetuate child and human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation, and promoting. such activities. Joe, you think that's going to be the message from this plea and the coverage of it? You think it is going to dissuade people from doing similar conduct? To a certain degree, yes. I mean, part of sentencing in criminal court is about teaching a lesson. It's about deterrence. It's about sending a signal to other people in the community don't do these certain things. Now, does deterrence always work? No, of course it doesn't. But when a judge sentences someone, someone in something like this. You may often hear the judge say, look, I'm going to punish you

for your acts, but I also want a message to be sent that anyone in this community who's going to be doing these types of crimes, you too will get this kind of a sentence. So in any type of criminal sentencing, there is a certain degree of deterrence for others who might, you know, commit a similar crime. Well, we'll see what he's sentenced to. We'll see what happens to his wife. Again, this is just next level disturbing stuff. Joe Tamburino, thanks so much for coming on. Great seeing you. Thank you for having me.

And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.