Repeat Sex Offender to Serve 47 Years in Prison for Sexual Exploitation of a Minor

PEORIA, Ill. –U.S. District Judge James E. Shadid today sentenced Harold L. Williams, 40, of Pekin, Ill., a previously convicted sex offender, to serve 47 years in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor while he was on federal supervised release. The sentence consists of 45 years for enticing an out-of-state minor victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography and an additional, consecutive two years in prison for violating the terms of his previously imposed lifetime supervised release. Judge Shadid ordered Williams to again remain on lifetime supervised release upon completion of his prison term.

Immediately prior to today’s sentencing, Williams formally entered his plea of guilty to the charge against him, which was committed from January 2019, when Williams was released from federal prison, to April 2019.

In 2010, Williams was convicted and sentenced to concurrent prison sentences for state and federal crimes. Williams was sentenced to six years in state prison for aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Peoria County, Ill., and to 10 years in federal prison for receipt of child pornography in the Central District of Illinois. He was released in January 2019.

Williams admitted that he violated the terms of his federal supervised release when he created a Facebook account shortly after his release from prison in January 2019. Williams used that account to communicate with a minor and trade child pornography with other Facebook users. Williams admitted that he solicited and enticed sexually explicit images from an out-of-state victim he knew was a minor. Williams also possessed several unauthorized devices without monitoring software, as required by the terms of his supervised release, to access the internet to trade child pornography.

Williams has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest on April 9, 2019.

The U.S. Secret Service; Pekin Police Department; U.S. Probation Office; and, the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Legge represented the government in the case prosecution.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov