An Oquawka, Ill. man has been sentenced to just over 15 years in federal prison on charges of sexual exploitation of a child and receipt of child pornography

Gale Hurt, age 73, was sentenced on March 30 in Springfield to 180 months in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois.

At the sentencing hearing, the government presented evidence that in February 2022, Hurt communicated with a fourteen-year-old girl using an online chatting application and his phone. He pretended to be a fifteen-year-old girl during the initial conversations and then asked to text with the child, said the release. When the conversation moved to text messaging, Hurt told the child he was a fifty-year-old man, sent the child nude images of himself and other pornography, and requested and received sexually explicit images of the child. During those conversations, he talked about the two meeting to engage in a sexual relationship. At the hearing, Senior United States District Judge Sue E. Myerscough found that Hurt had tricked the child into producing and sending the images to him and that by his own admission, he had received child pornography from other minors in the past, according to the press release.

Hurt was indicted in April 2022 and pleaded guilty in September 2022. He has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals since his arrest in March 2022, after he was charged with a federal complaint. The penalties for sexual exploitation of a child are no less than fifteen years and up to thirty years in prison, not more than a $250,000 fine, and up to a life term of supervised release. The statutory penalties for receipt of child pornography are no less than five years and up to twenty years in prison, no more than a $250,000 fine, and up to a life term of supervised release.

The U.S. Secret Service, along with the Illinois State Police and Springfield Police Department Task Force Officers investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner K. Jacobs represented the government in the prosecution. The Hurt case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Project Safe Childhood organizes federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute those who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, click here.