New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
A Canadian national was sentenced today in federal court in Springfield for enticing children over the internet to produce child pornography and to send the sexually explicit content to him.
Justin Carl Wong, 35, of Ontario, Canada, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni to 15 years in prison and 10 years of supervised release. In July 2018, Wong pleaded guilty to 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Wong was indicted in August 2014 and has been in custody since his arraignment on Aug. 10, 2017, after being extradited from Canada.
In December 2012, Wong used a Voxer account to communicate with two girls, aged eight and 10, in Hampshire County. Wong first sent text and voice messages to the 10-year-old girl, knowing that she was a minor, offering to be her “pretend boyfriend” and to help her “get a boyfriend in” her “real life.” Wong asked the girl to send him sexually explicit pictures of herself, and, initially, the child refused. Wong used psychological pressure to persuade and then to bully the girl to send him sexually explicit pictures by threatening to never speak to her again and telling her she would live a “lonely life” and to “have a nice life being alone.” He repeatedly referred to her as a “bitch” and said she was a “loser” because she refused to send him the pictures.
On Dec. 19, 2012, the 10-year-old girl succumbed to Wong’s repeated demands and sent three sexually explicit pictures of herself, as well as two sexually explicit photographs with the eight-year-old girl. Later that day, Wong engaged in a series of online communications with the eight-year-old girl in which Wong demanded specific kinds of sexually explicit pictures. The girl responded by sending to Wong five such photographs.
United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Peter C. Fitzhugh, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; U.S. Marshal John Gibbons for the District of Massachusetts; Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; and Granby Police Chief Alan Wishart made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Grant of Lelling’s Springfield Branch Office prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In 2006, the Department of Justice created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.
