Bronx man sentenced for making online threats to Nassau girl, 13

A Bronx man was sentenced Wednesday to 12 ½ years in federal prison for sending  child sexual abuse images to a 13-year-old Nassau girl he later threatened to kill.

Christian Brazoban, 26, pleaded guilty in January to one charge of distributing child sexual abuse images as part of a four-count indictment.

Brazoban appeared Wednesday in U.S. Eastern District Court in Central Islip where Judge Joan M. Azrack ordered him to serve 151 months and register as a sex offender. After his release from prison, Brazoban will be under mandatory court supervision for 5 years. He was also ordered to surrender his phones and computers to authorities. 

"The public must be protected," Azrack said in handing down the sentence.

Prosecutors said Brazoban had been communicating online with the girl from March 2021 through March 2023. After meeting online and exchanging video chats, authorities said, he persuaded the girl to send him suggestive photos, according to prosecutors.

After he had expressed interest in her 13-year-old friend, authorities said, the girl refused his further advances. Brazoban then began sending her explicit sexual abuse images of children between the ages of 3 and 11, prosecutors said, and made online threats that he would kill the girl’s family and their dog.

"lil girl shot dead on Long Island," Brazoban said in one message in court records. "I can see the headlines now."

He also threatened the girl’s 17-year-old sister and her friend, saying he was going to leave the sister's body in Coney Island, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley King said.

"This case involves the theft of innocence," King said. "This was despicable conduct."

Brazoban’s defense attorney, Charles Millioen, said his client suffered from untreated mental illness, including bipolar disorder and depression. Brazoban dropped out of school after failing ninth grade nine times, Millioen added, but is now working in jail to earn his GED.

He said Brazoban has expressed remorse for his crimes. Millioen requested his client be sentenced to a prison that includes treatment for mental health and sex offenders.

Also during the hearing, the 13-year-old girl's mother said the events pushed the teen into a mental health crisis, led her to engage in risky behavior and also traumatized her 17-year-old sister.

The mother was not identified in court to protect the identity of her two children.

Brazoban sent threatening messages of coming to kill the family and also threatened to sell photos of her daughter, the woman told the court.

"He said he loved her and they would get married. Sadly, my daughter believed him," she said. "This forced her to grow up much faster and haunted her memories. I worry she will never truly heal. Her confidence is shattered ... He took away parts of her childhood she will never get back."

Nassau County police and Homeland Security investigators searched Brazoban’s home in March 2023 and seized his computer and phone, which showed he had also sent child sexual abuse images to other victims, prosecutors said.

Azrack noted Brazoban had no prior criminal record but called his threatening messages "reprehensible" and "traumatizing,"

"There must be serious punishment," Azrack said. "This sentence must take into account this was not a passive observer of child pornography."

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.