A Rockford man, Gregorio Bacino, age 27, has been handed a sentence of six and a half years in federal prison following a plea agreement in which he admitted to possessing a disturbing cache of child pornography. In his possession, authorities discovered over 1,000 images and videos of minors, with victims including children as young as infants engaged in sexually explicit conduct, on his cell phone, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois.
The sentence was handed down this past Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Iain D. Johnston and doesn't stop with prison time alone. Post-incarceration, Bacino is slated to be closely monitored for 25 years under court-supervised release, as per the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois. He is also mandated to register as a sex offender, a label he will carry with him long after his prison sentence expires. The severity of the sentence reflects an attempt to not only penalize but also to prevent any potential future offenses.
The case against Bacino was made public by officials including Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Morris Pasqual, and Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago. The prosecution's efforts were led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Ladd.
