A licensed social worker was sentenced to seven years in federal prison on Friday, Feb. 20, after previously pleading guilty to receipt and distribution of child pornography, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Renee Hoberman of Plainview pleaded guilty in June 2025 and had faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Hoberman admitted to using encrypted social media messaging applications to upload, receive and trade digital videos and images depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, including several videos of infants six months to one year of age being physically restrained and raped by an adult male as the infants cried and frantically screamed for the duration of the videos, according to court filings and on the record testimony.
She also engaged in multiple online “chats” concerning child sexual molestation, which included Hoberman posing as the father of several minor children, claiming to have sex with the children and punishing them by getting naked, stripping the children naked, and spanking them while the other children watched, according to court filings and on the record testimony.
Hoberman invited another user to visit “his” family in New York to spank and sexually abuse the children, the court filings said. In addition, Hoberman described sexually abusing “his” children and their friends, and then uploaded and sent two videos containing child sexual abuse material, claiming that these videos depicted Hoberman’s own children, the court filings said.
According to public records and as alleged in court documents, during the same time period that Hoberman was distributing child sexual abuse material online, she was also working as a therapist with an organization based in Melville, serving children up to the age of 17.
Hoberman is a former Adelphi University graduate who began working at HealthFire Psychology in Pennsylvania in December 2022.
“The absolute depravity of Renee Hoberman’s crimes, committed while she was entrusted as a mental health counselor for children, represents a staggering betrayal of the public trust and a horrific violation of innocent lives,” Michael Alfonso, the acting special agent in charge of the state Homeland Security Investigations, said after the sentencing.
