Man Sentenced For Child Exploitation Offenses

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – A Cayuga County man was sentenced in federal court today on charges that he used the Internet to attempt to entice minors to engage in unlawful sexual conduct with him, and for his possession of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian.

Robert J. Stachura, 45, of Sterling, New York was sentenced by United States District Judge Hon. David N. Hurd to serve concurrent terms 135 months in federal prison for enticement of minors and possession of child pornography. His sentence of incarceration will be followed by 20 years of supervised release, and his conviction will require Stachura to register as a sex offender.

As a part of his earlier guilty plea, Stachura admitted that he had posted several explicit ads on Craigslist soliciting minors to meet him for sexual conduct, and to smoke marijuana with him. When one of his posts was answered by an undercover investigator from the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office, Stachura arranged to meet with whom he believed to be two teens, 15 and 13 years old, for sex. Instead, Stachura was arrested by the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office, after which he was found to be in possession of 43 video files and 3 images of child pornography on computers seized in the investigation.

Stachura’s arrest was the result of an investigation by the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Northeast Cyber Forensic Center at Utica College. He was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Fletcher, who can be reached as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood Marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.