An Illinois man who was once stationed in Groton, was sentenced to more than five years in prison Wednesday for possessing child sexual abuse videos.

Zakary Williams was sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge in Portland, Maine to 70 months in prison and five years of supervised release, according to U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Maine spokesperson Sheila Sawyer. He also must pay $47,000 to the victims shown in the videos and pictures he possessed.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police notified the U.S. Homeland Security Department in May of 2019 that people in the U.S. were uploading child pornography on the “Kik Messenger” messaging app. The app is frequently part of child pornography cases.

Homeland Security Investigations agents the traced one of the uploaded images back to an IP address associated with military housing on the New London Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Sawyer wrote in a news release. Agents determined that Williams was the source of an account uploading child pornography.

While stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire, Williams confessed to “sharing and viewing” child pornography in a December 2020 interview with Homeland Security agents.

“The investigation revealed that Williams was storing hundreds of images and videos in a cloud-based storage account that depicted the sexual abuse of children,” Sawyer wrote. “Many of the victims depicted were under the age of 12, and some were infants or toddlers.”

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service helped Homeland Security with the investigation.

To report the possession, distribution, receipt or production of child pornography, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678, or file a report at www.cybertipline.com.