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Leetonia man gets 30 years for federal sex crimes
CLEVELAND
A 51-year-old Leetonia man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to federal sex crimes involving minors.
Lucas J. Ippolito had pleaded guilty in September to transmitting child pornography, interstate transportation of a 13-year-old girl for sex and forcing her and a 15-year-old girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct for production of a visual depiction of such conduct.
On Friday, he drew the sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan, who said he will be on supervised release for 10 years after prison.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for 30 years to life in prison in this case, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
In a sentencing memorandum, Michael A. Sullivan, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, urged the judge to stay within those guidelines and impose a sentence that would prevent Ippolito from re-offending.
“Defendant violated a position of trust and authority and sexually exploited two young girls, sexually assaulted one of them and distributed their images on the Internet,” Sullivan wrote.
“Those images are on the Internet forever now, and the victims can never get them back,” the prosecutor’s memorandum said.
“Defendant contributed to the exploitation of hundreds of other children by receiving and distributing images and videos of child pornography,” he added.
Ippolito possessed more than 1,000 images of child pornography, including images of bondage and bestiality, the memorandum said.
Ippolito “should be considered a dangerous offender” because he “has bragged of sexually abusing other children and having the desire to sexually abuse even more,” Sullivan said.
Saying it contains “sensitive” material, defense lawyers Rhys B. Cartwright-Jones and Ronald D. Yarwood of Youngstown asked for and received the judge’s permission to file their sentencing memorandum under seal, which makes it unavailable for public viewing.
The indictment charged Ippolito with transporting 13- and 15-year-old girls from Pennsylvania to Ohio earlier this year to engage in sexual activity, forcing them to engage in sexually explicit conduct for production of a visual depiction of such conduct and possessing child pornography.
Ippolito also was charged with knowingly receiving and distributing between Jan. 6 and April 7, 2015, numerous computer files showing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, the U.S. attorney said.
Ippolito pleaded guilty to four counts and the U.S. attorney dropped the six other counts in the 10-count indictment.
The case was investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Youngstown FBI office.