De Sear worked in the firm’s capital markets group at the time of his 2011 arrest for one count of distribution of child pornography, for which he was released on a US$250,000 bond. He was taken into custody on 23 August in light of the nature of the additional charges.

The US Attorney’s office has claimed that De Sear used Allen & Overy’s wireless internet network to view the images and, during one of the sessions, distributed multiple child pornography files to an undercover law enforcement agent.

The 21-page indictment document, which is unsealed, accused De Sear of using an internet-based peer-to-peer file-sharing program to advertise, distribute and download hundreds of images of child pornography. The ex-lawyer allegedly used a picture of a young boy as his avatar and invited individuals with usernames that contained terms such as “boy”, “child”, and “little” to join his peer-to-peer network.

De Sear also used the network’s chat function to make specific offers to distribute and display child pornography, stated the indictment. In a 2011 chat message sent by De Sear to an individual with the username boycuddle2, the accused allegedly wrote: “best are guys who have kids of their own to share ... there is a network of those guys”, but it is “hard to get into that club without a kid”.

If convicted, he faces up to 180 years in prison and up to $2 million in fines, revealed the US Attorney’s office.

De Sear is being represented by law firm Critchley Kinum and Vazquez.

Prior to joining Allen & Overy in 2010, he worked as a partner at a number of law firms including Bingham McCutchen, McKee Nelson and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP.