URBANA, Ill. – Courtney Williams, 32, of the 3500 block of Plover Dr. in Decatur, Ill., was sentenced today to 324 months (27 years) in federal prison for child sexual exploitation offenses.
On March 11, 2021, Williams entered a plea of guilty to the indictment, which charged that for the time period between Jan. 17, 2020, and Jan. 25, 2020, Williams used the internet and a cell phone to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity that qualified as aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
According to court documents, Williams portrayed himself as a 17-year-old male while communicating online with a minor girl via Snapchat and text. As part of these communications, Williams solicited the girl to send him sexually explicit photos and to meet him to engage in sexual activity. Further, Williams lured the minor into his vehicle on the evening of Jan. 24, 2020, and took her to his residence where he gave her drugs which caused her to lose consciousness. While the minor girl was unconscious, Williams sexually assaulted her.
Williams has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals since his arrest on Feb. 7, 2020.
Following Williams’s release from prison, he will be on federal supervised release for 10 years and will be required to register as a sex offender.
The charges were investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Decatur Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elly M. Peirson represented the government in the prosecution.
The case 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.
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