AMHERST — Bradley James Driscoll, 26, of Amherst, will spend the next five years in prison for distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Driscoll, who pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography in February, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Springfield by U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni.

Driscoll’s prison sentence will be followed by five years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution to the victims.

In October 2023, Driscoll was indicted by a federal grand jury. The investigation determined that on or about Aug. 29, 2022, Driscoll knowingly distributed and possessed child sexual abuse material, in the form of videos, discovered after he engaged in a Kik online chat conversation with an undercover agent, and expressed interest in obtaining these materials.

Driscoll also distributed a link to the undercover agent which contained approximately 345 child sexual abuse material files depicting minor children, some as young as a year old, being sexually penetrated by adult males.

Two Apple iPhones and an Apple MacBook were confiscated from Driscoll’s home on Salem Place in February 2023, according to the indictment.

The indictment followed Driscoll telling federal agents in September 2023 that he was the owner of the Kik username and had located the link containing the sexually explicit files through other Kik messenger chat groups. He also acknowledged asking the undercover agent to send him sexual material related to child pornography and acknowledged that the Mega link he shared contained sexual materials involving young children.

Driscoll, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2020 and had worked in the university’s neuroscience laboratory, was then released on a series of conditions, including electronic monitoring with a curfew, having no contact with minors under the age of 17, no unlawful use of the internet, to remain enrolled in an academic program or to have full-time employment, to surrender his passport and have restricted travel outside the district, to remain law-abiding and to have no excessive use of alcohol.

The distribution charge provided for a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 20 years in prison, supervised release of no less than five years and a maximum of life and a $250,000 fine.

The possession charge provided for up to 20 years in prison, a mandatory minimum of five years and up to life of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the United States sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

The sentencing announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley; Kimberly Milka, acting special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boston Division; and Amherst Police Chief Gabriel Ting. Assistant U.S. Attorney Suzanne Sullivan Jacobus of the Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.