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Because there's no parole in the federal prison system, Lorenzo Johnson will have to live to 83 to see freedom again, under the sentence imposed by a U.S. District Court judge in Indiana.
Johnson, 33, of Hammond, IN took his chances at a trial rather than accept a plea deal from the government. Jurors, in turn, convicted him in August of two pornography-related counts as well as with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Johnson, who was convicted in 2009 for aggravated sexual abuse of a minor in Illinois, used Facebook accounts in other people's names to identify and reach out to women having financial trouble who had access to children, prosecutors told jurors at his trial in August.
He claimed to be trying to blackmail other Facebook users, they said.
Johnson convinced three of the women to "take sexually explicit photos of infants and prepubescent children whom they knew" and send them to him, the Justice Department wrote in a release Friday.
All three were charged with child porn offenses. One took a guilty plea and is awaiting sentencing while another is scheduled to plead out this coming Tuesday, federal authorities said, adding that the third "died during the course of the prosecution."
Following the 50-year federal prison term, Johnson must spend 15 years on supervised release, under the sentence.
That would take him to age 98.
“As the jury unanimously found, Lorenzo Johnson repeatedly persuaded vulnerable women to sexually exploit infants and young children,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s sentence sends a strong message that offenders who target vulnerable members of our society, and especially children, will be brought to justice.”
U.S. Attorney Clifford D. Johnson for the Northern District of Indiana said Johnson's crimes "merit the lengthy sentence that the judge imposed today. Manipulating vulnerable women into producing pornographic images of voiceless children is despicable criminal behavior."
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