Nehemiah Lafoe, Child Exploitation, Illinois 2017

URBANA, Ill. – Nehemiah Lafoe, a 23-year-old man from Crawfordsville, Indiana, has been ordered to serve 66 years in federal prison for his role in child exploitation and traveling to Illinois to engage in illicit activities with a minor.

On May 14, Lafoe was sentenced to three consecutive sentences of 22 years, totaling 66 years in federal prison. Upon release from prison, he will be required to remain on supervised release for life. Lafoe has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest on September 27, 2017.

Lafoe pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct on January 16, 2018. He admitted to enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce an image of the conduct and to transmit the image in interstate commerce on two occasions in June 2017. Lafoe also admitted to traveling from Indiana to Illinois on May 23, 2017, to engage in sexual acts with a minor.

According to documents filed with the court, Lafoe communicated with the minor through a popular social networking application. This case is the fourth defendant sentenced for child exploitation and child pornography offenses since early April in federal court in Urbana.

Three east central Illinois men, Gary F. Beals, Michael J. Mann, and Joshua L. Hazelbaker, were also sentenced for child pornography crimes in separate cases. Beals, 44, of Trilla, was sentenced to 60 months (five years) in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Mann, 47, of Momence, was sentenced to 121 months (10 years, 1 month) in prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release. Hazelbaker, 41, of Fithian, was sentenced to 126 months (10 years, 6 months) in federal prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release.

The cases were 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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.

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