The following is a U.S. Attorney’s Office Central District of Illinois Release
URBANA, Ill. –A Champaign, Illinois, man, Ozgur Kurt, 46, of the 2800 block of Alton Drive, was sentenced on September 20, 2022, to 96 months’ imprisonment for one count of attempted enticement of a minor.
According to court documents, Kurt engaged in sexually graphic online conversations with an individual whom he believed to be a fifteen-year-old minor. On September 1, 2020, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Kurt when he arrived at a Champaign restaurant to pick up the minor for a sexual encounter. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm sentenced Kurt to the eight-year term of imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Judge Mihm also imposed a $5000 fine.
Kurt was indicted in September 2020 and pleaded guilty in March 2022.Kurt has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene L. Miller represented the government at sentencing.
The case 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.
