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Press Release

Loves Park Man Pleads Guilty to Producing Child Pornography

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois

ROCKFORD — A Loves Park man pleaded guilty Monday before U.S. District Judge Philip G. Reinhard to producing child pornography. 

GRANT WOJAHN, 37, admitted in his written plea agreement that he created a Facebook account and posed as a female teenager.  Wojahn admitted that on March 20, 2015, while using that profile, he contacted a minor female victim using the Facebook private messaging feature and persuaded and enticed the minor female victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of having the minor victim take photographs of the sexually explicit conduct and then having the minor victim transmit the images to Wojahn using the private messaging service on Facebook.  According to the plea agreement, the female victim was 13 years of age at the time the pictures were produced and transmitted.  Wojahn also admitted that between May 21, 2014, and April 5, 2015, he similarly persuaded six other minor female victims, who were between the ages of ten and 12, to do the same.

Wojahn also admitted that on March 25, 2015, he used the Facebook private messaging service to chat and send another user a number of images of child pornography depicting one of the minor victims.  Wojahn further admitted that on Sept. 1, 2015, he possessed numerous images of child pornography on a USB storage device, a cellphone, and other devices, and that he possessed at least 43 videos of child pornography and at least 71 images of child pornography.

Wojahn faces a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment, and a statutory mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, and a term of supervised release of five years to life.  This offense also carries a maximum fine of $250,000.  

Sentencing for Wojahn is set for Sept. 26, 2018, at 9:00 a.m., in federal court in Rockford.

The guilty plea was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Jeffrey Sallet, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret J. Schneider.

Updated June 13, 2018

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Topic
Cybercrime