Delaware man sentenced to 30 years in prison on child pornography charges
WILMINGTON, Del. – A Delaware man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for production and transportation of child pornography. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from the New Castle County (Del.) Police Department.
Leonard Wasylyk, 49, of Wilmington, pleaded guilty to the charges in September 2011. Wasylyk was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release following his prison term, and will be required to register as a sex offender wherever he lives, works or attends school.
"Homeland Security Investigations is committed to stop predators in their tracks and today's sentencing underscores that fact," said John P. Kelleghan, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Philadelphia. "While we cannot give back the innocence to those who were abused and exploited, we can make sure that justice is served."
According to court documents, an undercover ICE HSI agent identified Wasylyk during an online undercover investigation into a private peer-to-peer network being used to trade images of child pornography. After downloading computer files containing child pornography from Wasylyk's home computer, the agents arrested Wasylyk and executed a search warrant at his North Wilmington, Del., residence on Dec. 9, 2010.
ICE HSI agents recovered a computer from Wasylyk's bedroom that contained more than 60,000 images of child pornography. The majority of these images depicted mostly prepubescent, adolescent and teenage boys engaged in sex acts with other boys or adult males. Through a forensic analysis of Wasylyk's computer, ICE HSI agents learned that Wasylyk had traded images of child pornography with approximately 150 individuals with whom he had engaged in more than 15,500 instant message chats.
During the forensic review of Wasylyk's computer, agents discovered more than 60 images of a young boy engaged in sexually explicit conduct with Wasylyk in the bedroom of his Wilmington residence. Agents subsequently identified the child and located him in southeastern Pennsylvania. The child reported that Wasylyk produced the sexually explicit images when the boy was 12 or 13 years of age. The forensic analysis also revealed that Wasylyk distributed the sexually explicit images of the child that he produced to other child sex offenders while bragging about having molested the boy.
This investigation is part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE HSI initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers. ICE HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators.
Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or NCMEC's CyberTipLine.
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