Waterloo Man Charged with Child Pornography Offense

Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced that on June 20, 2013, Nicholas J. Perjak, 32, Waterloo, Illinois, was arraigned on an indictment charging him with accessing, with intent to view, visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Specifically, the indictment alleges that, between on or about May 17, 2012, and on or about October 4, 2012, Perjak accessed with intent to view visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Perjak’s trial is scheduled for August 26, 2013, in East St. Louis, Illinois. If convicted of this charge, Perjak faces a term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years, a fine up to $250,000, and a term of supervised release of not less than five years to life.

An indictment is merely the method by which federal charges are lodged. A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Metro-East Cyber Crime Task Force. The case is assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.