West Peoria Man Sentenced to 60 Months in Prison for Child Pornography Charges

PEORIA, Ill. – A West Peoria man, Jesse Slater, 29, of the 2300 block of West Sherman Avenue, was sentenced on July 27, 2022, to 60 months imprisonment for convictions of one count of transfer of obscene matter to a minor and one count of possession of child pornography. The sentences are to be served concurrently and followed by 10 years of supervised release.

At the sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Joe B. McDade, the government presented evidence that Slater used his LG cell phone to send obscene matter to children and to store child pornography materials. In June 2021, Snapchat submitted a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding child sexual abuse material being possessed or transmitted using their platform. Law enforcement officers found that Slater sent videos of child pornography using Snapchat and frequently used online platforms, including Snapchat and Omegle, to engage in sexual chats with children as young as seven years old. In the chats, Slater asked the children to send him videos of the children without their clothes on. He also sent video of himself masturbating to two of the children.

At the hearing, Judge McDade called the details of the video “shocking,” but he said that they should be public so that people know what is happening to children online and protect them from exploitation. 

Slater was indicted in December 2021. He entered a guilty plea in March 2022 and has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since then.

The statutory penalties for transfer of obscene matter to a minor are up to 10 years imprisonment, up to a $250,000 fine and a maximum lifetime sentence of supervised release. The possession of child pornography charge carries penalties of up to a 20-year term of imprisonment, a maximum $250,000 fine and 5 years to life of supervised release, along with special assessment fines under two separate statutes.

The Illinois State Police, Peoria Police Department, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigated the case, with assistance of the Peoria County State’s Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Hollingshead-Cook represented the government in the prosecution.

The case against Slater was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. 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