A southwest suburban man was sentenced to 19 years in prison after he allegedly used pornographic images of a teenager to blackmail him into continuing their sexual relationship.
Ronald Gobenciong, 46, was sentenced Thursday by a federal judge in Chicago following a guilty plea to child pornography and sex trafficking of a minor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Illinois.
Gobenciong, of Bolingbrook, allegedly posed online as three separate individuals — an escort, an escort’s manager and a client — to lure the 17-year-old into making pornographic images of himself, prosecutors said.
In February 2017, Gobenciong paid the boy money and engaged in sex acts with him at a hotel in west suburban Burr Ridge, prosecutors said. Later, he threatened to share the explicit images of the boy with the boy’s father unless he continued to have sex with him, prosecutors said.
He was charged with the crime in April 2017.
In a plea agreement, Gobenciong admitted to doing the same thing with two other underage boys during the same time period, according to prosecutors. He used the aliases “David Marco,” “Steve John” and “Joe.”
Gobenciong “cynically played on the fears and insecurities of children, as well as their desire for friendship,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Pruitt wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “The depravity and cruelty of this conduct cannot be overstated.”
The Child Exploitation Unit of the Cook County sheriff’s office and Bolingbrook police aided the FBI in the investigation.
