CHICAGO — A former Chicago-area middle school teacher was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography and encouraging underage boys to produce sexually explicit images of themselves.
John C. Vastis, 54, of Lakemoor, Illinois, began communicating online with one of his victims in 2013. From the outset, the chats were sexually charged. For nearly a year Vastis encouraged the victim to record sexually explicit photos and videos of himself and transmit the images over the internet to Vastis. Several of the images depicted the victim’s genitals. Vastis also admitted in a plea agreement that he watched child pornography involving another victim and possessed images of a prepubescent boy performing a sex act on an adult male.
Vastis pleaded guilty last year to one count of accessing child pornography with the intent to view. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. imposed the 13-year prison sentence Jan. 10 in federal court in Chicago.
Vastis was arrested in August 2014. He previously worked as a teacher at Meridian Middle School in Aptakisic-Tripp District 102 in Buffalo Grove. The school district cooperated with this investigation, and there were no allegations that Vastis sexually exploited his students.
