A Crystal Lake man accused of soliciting improper images from a child in New Jersey and another in Massachusetts pleaded guilty Wednesday and was sentenced to six years in prison.
David Kurth, 32, pleaded guilty to possessing and soliciting child sex abuse images in two separate cases; he was accused of communicating online with two out-of-state girls younger than 18, according to a news release from the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Both girls were interviewed and confirmed that Kurth had met them online and, despite knowing they were minors, persuaded them to send him the images, according to the release.
He was sentenced in one case to six years and in the other to four years in prison but will serve them at the same time, according to orders in McHenry County court signed by Judge Tiffany Davis.
Kurth must serve half his prison time and receives credit for 197 days spent in the county jail. His prison term will be followed by mandatory supervised release for three years to natural life, and he’s required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, court records show.
In October, Kurth was arrested on the charges related to the girl in New Jersey.
At the time, he was on pretrial release in two 2021 pending cases, including one that alleged he had solicited and possessed images of child sex abuse involving the Massachusetts child. The other 2021 case, dismissed Wednesday in exchange for the guilty plea, involved the possession of child sex abuse images but did not involve a specific child, court records show.
At an initial court appearance on the most recent case, Assistant State’s Attorney Sawyer Schexnider said Kurth used multiple phone numbers and social media platforms to communicate with the New Jersey girl and exchange sexually explicit images.
When the girl tried to cut off contact, Kurth became “pushy” and said, “‘Let’s work through our issues,’” the prosecutor said, adding Kurth was accused of exchanging more than 9,000 text messages and had hundreds of FaceTime calls with the girl.
Schexnider said Kurth met the 14-year-old New Jersey girl while playing a video game. On social media and gaming sites, Kurth used the nickname “Cheese,” the prosecutor said.
Arguing for Kurth’s detainment in a pretrial hearing, Schexnider said Kurth told the girl, “‘I want to see more pictures. Let’s see what you got,’” and that she “‘better take sexy pictures.’”
In denying Kurth’s pretrial release in October, Judge Cynthia Lamb said Kurth “sent nude photos of himself to the victim, groomed the victim, coerced her into sending nude photos and videos to him. [Kurth] convinced this child that they were in a dating relationship in order to get her to send him sexually explicit photos of herself.”
The judge also noted that Kurth engaged in the acts while he had the two pending cases from 2021 with similar accusations.
Those stem from August 2021, when Kurth was charged with 11 felony counts of possessing videos of children being sexually abused, and October 2021, when prosecutors filed a second case charging Kurth with soliciting and possessing sex abuse videos involving the Massachusetts child, McHenry County court records show.
In the first 2021 case, when cash bond was still in place in Illinois, Kurth had posted $4,000 of a $40,000 bond and was released from jail pretrial. When arrested in the second case, he posted $10,000 of a $100,000 bond and was again released pretrial.
Court documents show Kurth’s prior defense attorneys had attempted to have him entered into mental health court rather than go through the criminal courts. Attorneys said Kurth suffers from several mental illnesses and described Kurth as a “vulnerable defendant.”
The cases against Kurth stemmed from an investigation conducted by the Crystal Lake Police Department following a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Investigators were able to trace an uploaded file that contained material depicting child sex abuse to Kurth’s address in Crystal Lake. Further investigative efforts into Kurth’s electronic devices and online Dropbox records revealed that he had communicated with the two children, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office.
“Crimes involving the exploitation of children are among the most disturbing offenses our office prosecutes,” States Attorney Randi Freese said. “Those who seek out or solicit child sexual abuse material fuel the continued victimization of innocent children. We will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate and prosecute these offenses to protect children and our community.”
Freese thanked Crystal Lake Police Department Detectives Jeffrey Mattson and Jennifer Zelinsky, members of NCMEC, Holbrook Police Department in Massachusetts and the Burlington County Sheriff’s Department in New Jersey for their collaborative efforts in identifying and apprehending Kurth.
The cases were prosecuted by Assistant State’s Attorneys Justin Neubauer and Shelby Page.