A former New York City councilman who previously served a decade in prison for his role in bribery and fraud schemes was arrested at Miami International Airport over the weekend for possessing child pornography.
U.S. Attorney’s Office
According to court documents obtained by CBS News Miami, Daniel James Halloran was arrested on child porn possession and transportation charges on Saturday after being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) when he arrived at MIA from a flight that originated in Cuba.
Halloran, 54, a Republican who represented the 19th District in Queens, was found guilty in 2014 by a federal jury of bribery and fraud for his involvement in a scheme to bribe GOP leaders so that New York State Sen. Malcolm Smith — a Democrat — could run for the Republican line in the 2013 NYC mayoral race. After his conviction, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Airport arrest
According to the court documents, Halloran arrived Saturday at MIA on an American Airlines flight from Cuba on his way home to New York. Upon arrival, a CBP officer referred him for a secondary inspection. During the inspection, CBP officers examined Halloran’s personal property, including his iPhone and iPad, which he provided the passcodes to unlock.
While examining Halloran’s iPhone, an officer found “several videos of suspected child pornography located in the hidden folder album of the phone’s photos application.” According to the court documents, the folder contained at least 35 files depicting child porn, including five videos that showed underaged girls performing sexual acts.
Then, the officer also found a text conservation on the messaging app Telegram that had indicated Halloran had purchased the child porn sometime around Nov. 27, 2024. In the messages, Halloran was offered child porn to purchase tiered content packages costing between $50 and $500. At one point in the conversation, Halloran allegedly asked the seller, “What’s the delivery platform?” and “What are the differences between [regular], premium, VIP?”, the court documents said.
After being told his Miranda rights, law enforcement questioned Halloran, who admitted that the iPhone belonged to him and that he “knowingly had child pornography videos stored on his mobile phone,” the court documents said. When asked how many of the videos in the hidden folder depicted child porn, Halloran told the officers that approximately “two-thirds to three-quarters of the videos depicted child pornography.” According to the court documents, the hidden folder on Halloran’s phone had approximately 1,362 videos.
