A man accused of committing 119 sexual crimes against minors has been sentenced to 19 years behind bars, the Ivanovo regional branch of the Investigative Committee said in a statement Thursday.
The 42-year-old suspect committed the majority of his crimes in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to investigators.
But Ivanovo regional police, based some 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow, only suspected that the man could be involved in sexual crimes against minors in 2012, when they discovered he had tried to lure a 9-year-old boy using the social media network Vkontakte, Russia's equivalent of Facebook. Authorities claim the man had sparked "an unhealthy interest in sex" in the boy.
Last month, a former clown from an Omsk children's theater, 59-year-old Vladimir Chertishchev, was apprehended on suspicion of having assaulted two 14-year-old boys in his apartment. He faces up to 12 years in prison.
