Illinois Man Sentenced to Over Five Years After Pleading Guilty to Traveling to Maryland to Engage in Sex with a 12-Year-Old Girl

BALTIMORE, MD—U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced Vincent Louis Karczynski, age 21, of Calumet City, Illinois, today to 71 months in prison, followed by supervised release for life, after Karczynski pleaded guilty to traveling from Illinois to Baltimore to have sex with a minor.

United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Colonel Terrence Sheridan, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; and Anne Arundel County Police Chief James Teare, Sr. announced the guilty plea.

According to Karczynski’s plea agreement, Karczynski contacted a young girl living in Glen Burnie, Maryland on Myspace.com around October 2008, who he learned was 12 years old. They continued to converse over the Internet on Myspace.com and Gaiaonline.com websites, and spoke and texted each other on their cell phones. They discussed meeting to have sex.

Karczynski flew to BWI airport on March 27, 2009 and met the girl at Marley Station Mall around 9:45 p.m.  Karczynski and the girl “made out” while they watched a movie in the theater. They met again at the mall the next day and had sexual contact during another movie. Karczynski wanted the girl to come back with him to the hotel he was staying at in Baltimore, but the girl refused. 

On March 29, 2009, the girl’s mother found a text message on her daughter’s cell phone from Karczynski referring to the sexual contact at the theater. Shortly thereafter, the mother answered a call on the cell phone and a male voice stated “hey cutie can you talk.” The caller hung up after the mother asked who was calling. The girl’s mother contacted Anne Arundel County police. The call was traced to the hotel where Karczynski was staying and he was arrested that day at the hotel.

Mr. Rosenstein praised the Maryland State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Anne Arundel County Police Department for their investigative work in this case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, 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 (CEOS), 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 to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.