Air Force Veteran Used Facebook To Solicit Minor Girls For Sex.

(14 June 2012) The 39-year-old head of a Civil Air Patrol program in Oakridge,TN pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges. (By Karen McCowan of The Register-Guard) The leader of a Civil Air Patrol cadet program in Oakridge was sentenced Wednesday, 13 June to five years in prison for sexually abusing two female high school students. David Sierakowski, 39, pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree sexual abuse for fondling the breasts of two girls, one 15 and one 17. The truck driver and U.S. Air Force veteran also pleaded guilty to three counts of first-­degree online corruption of a child. Those charges reflect three separate occasions in which Sierakowski used Facebook instant messaging to solicit the girls to engage in sexual conduct and to arrange physical meetings with them. Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti ordered Sierakowski to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. His younger victim, who turned 15 shortly before the April incidents, was a participant in the Civil Air Patrol program and knew him as a family friend and from attending the same church, prosecutor Erik Hasselman told Chanti. The 17-year-old victim did not participate in the program, which Oakridge School District Superintendent Don Kordosky described as a paramilitary extra­curricular activity that focuses on physical fitness as well as on exposing students to aviation, including riding in airplanes, and the Civil Air Patrol’s search and rescue mission. Sierakowski met the older victim when both attended the younger one’s 15th birthday party in March, Hasselman said. The state sought no restitution in the case, in part because Sierakowski has a family, the prosecutor said. “You can imagine, in a small community like this, the emotional impact this has had not only on his wife but also on his children,” Hasselman said. “This has been very tough. The children are not only suffering the absence of their father, but the potential stigma that goes along with the crimes that he committed. This is not a happy day for anybody, by any means, but the victims feel some sense of justice.” Sierakowski told Chanti he was “extremely sorry that I’ve done this.” “I want to get help so that nothing like this happens again and so I can be the husband and father that I should be,” Sierakowski said as his wife sat with their pastor in the courtroom. Chanti urged him to use his prison time to immediately begin working on the underlying issues that led to his crimes. “You’re going to be in the custody of the Department of Corrections for a long time, but the damage you’ve done is lifelong,” the judge said. Not only did he betray his wife, children and the public trust of his Civil Air Patrol position, she said, but he robbed his victims of “their innocence and their right to grow into young women without violation.” Kordosky called Sierakowski’s crimes tragic, and noted that the school district conducted a criminal background check before clearing him to work with students. The superintendent said some parents of the 10 students who took part in the cadet program have expressed interest in “seeing it continue because of its positive impact on many kids despite this disaster.”