Texas Man Gets 10 Years in Prison for Child Porn, Soliciting Downers Grove Teen

A Texas man has been sentenced to 10 years in Illinois prison for possessing child pornography and having sexually explicit conversations with a 13-year-old Downers Grove girl.

Rudolph Figueroa, 46, of Corpus Christi, TX, was sentenced Thursday in DuPage County Court after pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and one count of solicitation to meet a child, according to DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin.

From March 2012 through June 2012, Figueroa exchanged text messages and spoke to the victim on several occasions, pretending to be a 17-year-old boy from Florida, Berlin said.

Authorities said Figueroa carried on sexually explicit conversations and texts with the girl on several occasions, knowing she was only 13 years old. 

He originally contacted the girl over the Internet after responding to YouTube videos she had posted, and eventually asked to meet her in person without her parent's consent, Berlin said.

Through the course of their investigation, authorities discovered images of child pornography in Figueroa's possession.

As a result of his conviction, Figueroa will be required to register as a lifetime sex offender.

“In today’s world of instant and potentially anonymous communication, it is extremely important that parents teach their children how to be careful and alert to suspicious behavior when communicating over the internet through texts, emails and even telephone calls with people they have not met in person,” Berlin said in a press release.  “Child sexual predators hide behind the anonymity that the Internet provides as they troll for their young victims. Someone who says they are a 15 year-old boy or girl may in reality be a child sexual predator looking for their next victim."