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Press Release

Delaware Man Pleads Guilty to Production and Transportation of Child Pornography

For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs

WASHINGTON – A Wilmington, Del., man pleaded guilty today to production and transportation of child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Charles M. Oberly III of the District of Delaware and John P. Kelleghan, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Philadelphia.

 

Leonard Wasylyk, 49, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson in the District of Delaware. Wasylyk has been detained since his Dec. 9, 2010, arrest.

 

According to statements made and documents filed in court, an undercover agent from the Wilmington office of the Department of Homeland Security HSI identified Wasylyk during an online undercover investigation into a private peer-to-peer network being used to trade images of child pornography. After downloading computer files containing child pornography from Wasylyk’s home computer, federal agents arrested Wasylyk and executed a search warrant at his North Wilmington residence on Dec. 9, 2010. Law enforcement agents recovered a computer from Wasylyk’s bedroom that contained over 60,000 images of child pornography. The majority of the images depicted mostly prepubescent, adolescent and teenage boys engaged in sex acts with other boys or adult males. Through a forensic analysis of Wasylyk’s computer, agents learned that Wasylyk had traded images of child pornography with approximately 150 individuals, with whom he had engaged in over 15,500 instant message chats.

According to court documents, during the forensic review of Wasylyk’s computer, agents discovered more than 60 images of a young boy engaged in sexually explicit conduct with Wasylyk in the bedroom of his Wilmington residence. Agents subsequently identified the child and located him in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The child reported that Wasylyk produced the sexually explicit images when the boy was 12 or 13 years old. Forensic analysis also revealed that Wasylyk distributed the sexually explicit images that he produced to other child sex offenders while bragging about having molested the boy.

 

At sentencing, scheduled for Jan. 4, 2012, Wasylyk faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison on the production of child pornography charge and a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the transportation of child pornography charge. Wasylyk also faces a term of supervised release of five years to life following his prison sentence, and will be required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction in which he lives, works or attends school.

 

This case is being investigated by HSI. This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Thomas Franzinger of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward J. McAndrew of the District of Delaware.

Updated September 15, 2014

Press Release Number: 11-1177