Chicago-Area Man Sentenced for Graphic Sexual Chats with Chico Teenager

SACRAMENTO, CA—United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that MICHAEL KORIS, 23, of Tinley Park, Illinois, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. to five years in prison, the statutory maximum sentence. KORIS pleaded guilty on August 7, 2008, to use of interstate facilities to transmit information about a minor.

This case was the product of an extensive investigation by the Chico Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Kyle Reardon, who prosecuted the case along with former Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ferris, in early May 2006, KORIS began an online relationship with a 15-year-old Chico-area female through a goth-themed social networking website. During the course of their online communications, the defendant made repeated references to violent sexual desires such as having sex with her lifeless body, cutting her, drugging her, and making her bleed.

The defendant sent a video of himself masturbating to the minor during their online communications. He also sent a web camera to her and asked that she masturbate while being filmed so that he could watch. The camera was not delivered to the minor and no images of the minor were filmed, but at the time of his arrest, the defendant had similar online relationships with five other minor females who were 16 and 17 years old.

In sentencing, Judge England found that the nature and circumstances of KORIS’s conduct outweighed the mitigating evidence offered in the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006, by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov or call the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California and ask to speak with the PSC coordinator.