PEORIA, ILL. — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (Department of Justice), published as received.

PEORIA, Ill. – A Pekin, Illinois, man, Kenneth W. Holobaugh, 43, was sentenced on August 14, 2024, to fifteen years in federal prison for attempted enticement of a minor.  He was also ordered to serve a fifteen-year term of supervised release upon completion of his term of confinement.

At the sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Joe B. McDade, the government established that from April 2023 through January 2024, Holobaugh, a registered sex offender, communicated on an internet-based social media platform with an individual he believed to be a thirteen-year-old female, expressing multiple times that he wanted to engage in sex with her. In January 2024, Holobaugh drove to a location in Peoria to meet with the girl for the purpose of having sex. Federal law enforcement agents arrested him when he arrived at the location.

Holobaugh was indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2024 and entered a guilty plea in April 2024.

The statutory penalties for attempted enticement of a minor are a minimum of ten years to life imprisonment, followed by a minimum five-year to maximum life term of supervised release. Holobaugh  has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest, pending the resolution of the case. He was previously convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in July 2001 and is required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.

The case investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Melissa P. Ortiz and Ronald L. Hanna represented the government in the prosecution.

The case against Holobaugh was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.