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

PEORIA, Ill. – A Peoria, Illinois, man, Joshua Michael Williams, 43, was sentenced on March 5, 2025, to 135 months’ imprisonment for attempted enticement of a minor, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. He also will be required to register as a sex offender.

At the sentencing hearing in front of U.S. District Judge Jonathan E. Hawley, the court was informed that in January and February 2024, Williams engaged in online chats with an individual he believed to be the stepfather of an 11-year-old female who was willing to let his stepdaughter be used for sex acts. Williams expressed an interest in meeting with the purported minor for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts and said that he had wanted to engage in sexual acts with another minor female in the past. Williams arranged to meet the daughter, and, when he arrived at the pre-arranged meeting place, he was arrested.

Williams pleaded guilty in October 2024 and has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest.

In sentencing Williams, Judge Hawley noted that the only good thing about what happened was that there was no minor, stating that there easily could have been an 11-year-old whose life would be altered by such conduct.

The statutory penalties for attempted enticement of a minor are ten years up to life imprisonment, followed by a term of supervised release ranging from five years to life.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office, investigated the case.

The case against Williams 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.