Chicago Man Sentenced to 55 Years in Federal Prison for Enticing Minors to Engage in Sexual Activity

CHICAGO—A Chicago man was sentenced today to 55 years in federal prison for enticing two minor boys to engage in sexual activity after having committed previous sex crimes against minors and while registered as a sex offender, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. The defendant, Matthew Calek, 28, of Chicago, received a mandatory 10-year sentence as part of the 55-year total prison term because he was a registered sex offender when he committed the new crimes.

The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen in Federal Court in Chicago. Calek faced a maximum sentence of life in prison and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines called for a sentencing range between 30 years and life imprisonment.

“This sentence will incapacitate this defendant and guarantee that he will inflict no further harm upon young victims for the foreseeable future, and we hope that it helps deter the conduct of other sexual predators and spares other potential victims,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.

According to court documents, in the summer of 2006, Calek used a social networking site, MySpace.com, and online chats to lure a 14-year-old boy from his home in Pennsylvania to Chicago, where Calek raped the boy. In the fall of 2006, Calek deceived a 17-year-old minor into engaging in repeated sex acts by posing as an MTV movie producer; then tried to extort the boy for more sex by threatening to distribute DVDs of the sex acts at the boy’s high school. At the same time, Calek amassed a collection of images and videos of children being sexually abused. At the time he committed these crimes, Calek was on federal supervised release for a previous federal child-exploitation conviction, and was registered in the State of Illinois as a sex offender.

Calek was indicted in April 2008 for possessing child pornography and obscene material, in addition to the enticement counts, to which he pleaded guilty in April 209. Judge Andersen sentenced Calek to a total of 660 months on the two enticement counts, including a mandatory consecutive 10-year prison term for committing the crime while being a registered sex offender. He also imposed lifetime supervised release and ordered restitution to one of the victims.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie B. Porter.