An Antioch man was sentenced to 20 years in prison on child pornography charges.
Christopher N. Bonick, 31, was found guilty by a federal jury after a trial in March. He was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years followed by 30 years of supervised release, for attempting to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity and possession of child pornography.
Bonick began communicating online with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl, but was actually an undercover officer in Louisiana.
In July 2011, Bonick had a lengthy, sexually explicit chat with the officer in which Bonick asked if she would be willing to engage in sexual activity with him. He tried to convince the "teen" by telling her that he had previously met a 15-year-old girl online and had traveled to have sex with her.
Bonick discussed traveling to see her and continued the sexually explicit conversation.
Other evidence introduced at trial also showed that Bonick had previously communicated with numerous minors online and had solicited child pornography from them and had traded child pornography with other individuals via email.
Officers found dozens of child porn images at his home in Antioch in January of 2012. That's when he admitted that he was sexually attracted to minor teenagers.
Testimony presented to the Court during the sentencing hearing revealed that Bonick also had been talking on teen oriented websites to as many as 21 minors between July 2010 and July 2011 and had conversations with young girls before turning the conversations to a sexual nature and sending and soliciting explicit images.
The case was investigated by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carrie Daughtrey and Henry Leventis.
