Editor’s Note: This story contains details of sexual assault and child pornography.
A former Northeastern admissions counselor pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to sharing and viewing child pornography through Zoom chat rooms.
Beau Christopher Benson, 35, is scheduled for sentencing July 8 and faces a minimum of five years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a press release Thursday.
Benson, who lives in Dorchester, was arrested in November 2023 after authorities found 15 video files containing explicit content of children from 2 to 14 years old on his Dropbox account. Prosecutors said he also uploaded two videos containing child pornography depicting 2- to 4-year-olds to the account.
Benson told authorities in a police interrogation last year that a guest staying at his residence was using his Dropbox account, which he admitted was associated with his email, but that he did not know it contained child pornography, according to an affidavit from the Boston Police Department obtained by The News.
“Benson indicated that Dropbox reported to him that [he] had illegal pornographic content,” the affidavit said. “Benson denied having anything to do with child pornography found in his Dropbox account.”
Law enforcement was alerted to Benson’s activities involving viewing and distributing child sexual abuse material in April 2023, when an unidentified person who previously pleaded guilty to child pornography charges said he had encountered Benson in Zoom chat rooms that were used for streaming the illegal content, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said Benson entered Zoom chats with other men and masturbated to videos that depicted children being sexually assaulted.
While he admitted to using the account to save “homemade adult pornographic videos,” Benson told authorities he would “immediately leave” Zoom rooms where child pornography was being streamed, according to the affidavit.
Boston police searched Benson’s residence in August, according to the affidavit.
Benson worked at Northeastern as a senior associate director of admissions for international recruitment since October 2007, according to his LinkedIn. He was promoted to director of global enrollment strategies in July, The News previously reported.
Following Benson’s arrest, the university told The Boston Globe he had been “suspended indefinitely” from his position. In a statement to The News Friday, the university said Benson is “not employed at Northeastern.”
According to travel itinerary logs obtained by The News, Benson visited several high schools in New York and abroad to recruit students to the university from August to November. The travel occurred after the BPD executed the search warrant and questioned Benson about child pornography connected to his email account.
The charge of receiving child pornography mandates a minimum of five years and up to 20 years in federal prison, at least five years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000, according to Thursday’s press release.
