45-year sentence for man caught by mother of Worcester boy he sought to molest

WORCESTER — A New Jersey sex offender arrested after a Worcester mother foiled his plot to molest her son was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison Friday.

Jordan Winczuk, 36, received the sentence following a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in which a prosecutor detailed the man’s attempts to abuse the boy — and others — on social media.

“There are any number of children out there that (Winczuk has) victimized,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen M. Noto told a judge, adding that he has shown no respect for the law.

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Noto described at length how Winczuk, a failed EMT candidate, used fake law enforcement insignia to impress and groom young boys online. He also, she said, sometimes posed as a young girl interested in an insecure boy to procure explicit photos.

Sex crimes in NJ

The conduct for which he was sentenced — a guilty plea to attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and a related charge — occurred after he had already served a five-year prison sentence for two child sex-related crimes in New Jersey.

In one case, Winczuk had admitted to sexually assaulting a teenager — one of four minors he had been accused of abusing — while in the second, he had been convicted of endangering child welfare by sharing child pornography.

According to Noto, Winczuk, in December 2017, violated parole conditions by purchasing a smartphone that she said, he went on to use to groom young boys online.

His conduct, she wrote in a sentencing memorandum, included convincing young boys to send him pictures of their genitals by pretending to be a young girl. To fool them, she said, he would send sexual images of pre-pubescent girls.

He would also pretend to be in law enforcement to gain boys’ trust — sending pictures of phony badges and equipment — and acting like he was trying to help them through puberty, Noto said.

Instagram chats

In January 2018, Noto said, Winczuk groomed an 11-year-old Worcester boy on Instagram for two weeks, posing as the first-responder big brother of a fictional young girl.

The chats, Noto said, showed Winczuk establishing trust with the boy — listening to his insecurities, his gripes about puberty — and, under the guise of helping, asking for nude photos.

Winczuk, who at one point urged the child to block another Instagram user he alleged was a “pedo,” became more explicit in his demands, Noto said.

Although the boy repeatedly said he did not want to share photos “below the waist,” he continued asking, she said, encouraging the boy to masturbate and share pictures.

“You can trust me” Winczuk wrote to the boy, whom he would call “little bro” and say he loved, according to court documents.

Winczuk eventually asked the boy to come visit him for a night in New Jersey, the documents show, describing sex acts he said he would perform on the boy’s “grapes” and saying he would get “hard.”

Mother looks at phone

Authorities said Winczuk’s plot was foiled when the boy’s mother, suspicious at hearing her son’s phone go off late at night, inspected it and found the chats.

The mother read the entire thread, they said, and then decided to catch the man by posing as her son and getting him to reveal personal information.

Posing as her son, authorities said, the mother got Winczuk to send photos of his face, his tattoos and a partial photograph of his license.

She suggested they get together and asked where he lived, authorities said, and took screenshots of the replies he provided.

Because Instagram alerts users to screenshots, Winczuk became suspicious, authorities said, and texted he was afraid he was being set up.

By that time, it was too late for him, as the mother went to Worcester police, who were able to match the photographs Winczuk had provided to pictures on file with the New Jersey state prisons.

Federal agents raided Winczuk’s home, where they found the phone he used to groom the boy, along with a second phone, hidden in an armchair.

Noto said the Worcester boy was not the only boy Winczuk victimized in 2018, noting that he had conversations with an unknown number of boys including one who sent Winczuk pictures of his genitals.

Evidence also showed, Noto said, that Winczuk’s Instagram account contained at least 35 images of child pornography including images of a pre-pubescent boy being raped by an adult man.

Winczuk shared the child rape images with a male in Indonesia, she said, and then offered to pay the man thousands for photographs of his younger brother.

Winczuk, court documents show, said he wished to sexually abuse the brother or other boys, and would pay for help doing so.

“I’m coming there … I am going to help you and (sic) sister,” he wrote the man. “And you have to get the little boy.”

Prosecutors, upon charging Winczuk in 2019, alleged that he faced a “mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison,” but that calculation ended up changing.

Possible 45-year sentence

Court documents show prosecutors later argued Winczuk, based on his New Jersey convictions, faced a minimum mandatory sentence of 45 years between the two crimes to which he pleaded guilty.

Winczuk’s lawyer, Scott Lauer, disagreed, saying a case out of California’s federal courts indicated the man should only be jailed 35 years.

Lauer said while Winczuk’s crimes were abhorrent, he did not actually physically abuse the Worcester boy. He said the man’s sentence was unfair compared to others he listed in a court brief.

Winczuk, who spent much of Friday’s hearing staring toward the table in front of him, declined to make a statement before sentencing.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman ruled that Winczuk was subject to the 45-year mandatory minimum and issued the corresponding sentence.

Lauer, saying he believes his client’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment had been violated, vowed to appeal.

He argued a 45-year sentence might effectively become a “death sentence,” and argued that recidivism rates for elderly sex offenders are very low.

Court documents show several members of Winczuk’s family wrote letters on his behalf, with his sister saying he made his “dumb decision” after their father had just died and their mother had been diagnosed with a serious illness.

The woman wrote that Winczuk had PTSD from working as a “volunteer firefighter and EMS worker,” and had won several “good citizenship” awards.

Winczuk, who has been in custody since his arrest, was sentenced to five years of supervised release upon the conclusion of his sentence.

'Danger to society'

In a press release Friday, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael S. Rollins and Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said the prosecution reflected their ongoing commitment to root out child abuse.

"Today’s sentence ensures this danger to society can never sexually exploit another child again,” Bonavolonta said. “While Mr. Winczuk is behind bars, his victims will try to recover from the emotional scars he left them with, and the FBI will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate and bring to justice others like him who are intent on harming children.”

The leaders thanked Worcester police, New Jersey State Police and Homeland Security, among others, for their role in the case, which was brought under a nationwide initiative called Project Safe Childhood.

More information on that project can be found at www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Contact Brad Petrishen at brad.petrishen@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BPetrishenTG.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Sex offender Jordan Winczuk sentenced to 45 years in federal prison