Sacramento man sentenced for luring teen girl and other children into online sex acts
A judge on Thursday sentenced a 35-year-old Sacramento man to 17 years and seven months in federal prison for telling a teenage girl and other children to perform sex acts via online Skype chats, prosecutors said.
U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley ordered Nicholas Vuksinich to pay at least $33,000 in restitution as part of his sentence, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. Prosecutors said the judge at a Feb. 11 hearing will determine an additional amount of restitution Vuksinich will have to pay.
“There are no victims in the criminal justice system more vulnerable than children,” Nunley said at the sentencing hearing, according to the news release.
Vuksinich on Jan. 9 pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography, according to the records from the U.S. District Court Eastern District of California.
Prosecutors said Vuksinich communicated online with the 14-year-old girl who lived in the Midwest using video, audio and Skype chat from July through November in 2016.
Vuksinich “groomed” the girl knowing how old she was and directing her to engage in numerous demeaning, lewd, lascivious and sexual activities that were saved as images on his computer, according to a sentencing memo the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed Dec. 3.
Law enforcement officials on May 30, 2018, served search warrant at Vuksinich’s home. On his computer, investigators found about 500 images of the teenage girl along with more than 900 additional child porn videos and photos, including images he downloaded that same day, prosecutors said.
Skype chats on Vuksinich’s computer also indicated he directed numerous other children to perform sex acts and watch him commit lewd acts, according to the sentencing memo.
“This defendant’s conduct was long-lasting, extensive and directed at real children whom he manipulated on the Internet,” U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said in the news release. “His actions will have severe effects on his victims that may last for the rest of their lives.”
The case against Vuksinich was the result of an investigation by the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which is a federal and state-funded group of investigators managed by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office with agents from federal, state and local agencies.
