Online predator gets 25 years

Schenectady man posed as teenager to trick girls

ALBANY — A 47-year-old Schenectady man who posed online as a male teenager to trick teen girls as far away as South Dakota into sending him sexually explicit images of themselves — and blamed his predatory behavior on his ex-wife — was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison Thursday.

Thomas Ullmann contacted more than 200 teenage girls on Mylol.com, a teenage dating site, posing as an 18year-old male. And he admitted to the FBI that he used an analogy to the erotic movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” with at least 100 girls “to try to convince them to be submissive to him,” prosecutors said in a pre-sentencing memo to U.S. District Judge Anne Nardacci.

“He told the FBI that he cannot control himself,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Kopita stated. She said Ullman “blamed his ex-wife for his actions.”

On Tuesday, the judge ordered Ullman to be on supervised release for 15 years following his release from prison. She ordered Ullman to pay one of the victims $5,000 in restitution to be paid immediately. In imposing the sentence, Nardacci noted that Ullman stated he liked the attention he had received from the teenagers and that they were “easy to dominate.” He admitted having an interest in underage teenagers dating back 15 years before his internet crimes.

In a letter to the judge filed in court papers, Ullman apologized and said he did not concern himself with the feelings of the girls he victimized.

“I repent my crime and sins,” Ullman wrote. “I fantasized that the girls viewed communicating with me as desirable. I allowed my fantasies to overcome me. I convinced myself that being on the internet somehow made my conduct less troubling. I know better.”

After meeting teenagers on MYLOL, Ullmann continued conversations with the girls on the Google Hangouts video chat app, Kik messaging and via cellphone. He instructed the victims as young as 13 to send him sexually explicit images of themselves or livestream sexually explicit conduct, court papers show.

Court documents show the sequence of events leading to Ullman’s arrest began in February 2021, when computer software in a school district in South Dakota flagged inappropriate conversations, including photos and videos, on a

school-issued computer that had belonged to a 15year-old.

The school district reported the discovery to police. Mcpherson County Sheriff David Ackerman interviewed the teenager, who said she had

spoken to a “Tommy Ullman,” who had claimed his camera was broken. Investigators, including members of the South Dakota Internet Crimes Against Children, traced the victim’s cellphone and discovered Ullman.

On March 12, 2021, the sheriff contacted a Rotterdam police investigator working with the FBI

Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. On June 16, 2021, the FBI searched Ullman’s house. He agreed to speak to agents at the FBI’S Albany headquarters.

Along the way, Ullman admitted he had contacted more than 200 teenagers, was specifically attracted to girls around age 15 and was actively communicating

with five teenagers, the investigator stated in an affidavit submitted as part of the criminal complaint.

In October, Ullman, who has worked as a laborer for a plumbing and heating company, pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child for his actions between at least March 2020 and June 16, 2021.

“Mr. Ullman fully understands the seriousness of his misconduct and its effects,” Ullman’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Timothy Austin told the judge. He requested the minimum sentence of 15 years.

“His remorse continues undiminished since his first expression of remorse

to the investigators on day one,” Austin stated. “As much as any person defense counsel has represented, Mr. Ullman has accepted that he deserves severe punishment, that he needs to pay a significant price and to undergo intensive rehabilitation before he might be allowed to return to the community.”