Chicago, IL-(ENEWSPF)- A Chicago man who collected thousands of images and hundreds of videos of child pornography was taken into federal custody after he was sentenced yesterday to 13 years and four months in federal prison for transporting and possessing child pornography using his home computers. The defendant, Jonathan Sainz, 28, had pleaded guilty in June of this year. He was charged in October 2011 after federal agents searched his residence earlier that year.
Sainz was sentenced to 160 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, by U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan. He must serve at least 85 percent of his federal sentence before he is eligible for release, and there is no parole in the federal prison system. Transporting child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, while possessing child pornography carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Sainz was also ordered to pay $8,387 in restitution to a specific child pornography victim whose image he possessed and who was identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) as a result of previous unrelated investigations.
According to court records, in December 2010, an undercover law enforcement agent engaged in an online chat with Sainz, during which the agent downloaded approximately eight videos and 44 images of child pornography from files made available for sharing by Sainz. FBI agents subsequently linked the Internet account used during the chat to Sainz’s residence. Ultimately, Sainz was found to possess approximately 3,820 images and 222 videos of child pornography on his home computers. The images and videos included depictions of extremely young children, including toddlers, being sexually assaulted.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force. The task force is part of a nationwide effort known as the Innocence Lost National Initiative targeting those involved in the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the United States. In Chicago, the CETF is composed of FBI special agents and officers and investigators from the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The sentence was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert J. Shields, Jr., Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bolling W. Haxall.
Source: FBI
