COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Lower Salem, Ohio, man was sentenced in federal court here today to 300 months in prison for crimes related to exploiting minor victims in Ohio and in the Philippines.
James A. Sabolick, 58, brought a minor from West Virginia to his hunting cabin in Washington County to engage in illicit sex acts. Sabolick also sent money to Filipino women for their basic living expenses in exchange for child sexual abuse material.
“We are dedicated to working across all levels of law enforcement to hold people accountable for their crimes, no matter where they exploit their victims,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker. “Our priority is putting perpetrators like Sabolick behind bars for significant periods of time so that they can no longer prey on the vulnerable. The sentence imposed today does just that.”
Sabolick pleaded guilty in January 2024 to two counts of sexually exploiting a minor and one count of possessing child pornography.
According to court documents, on July 24, 2021, Marietta police officers conducted a traffic stop of a vehicle that Sabolick was driving. Sabolick told officers he was alone while attempting to conceal a minor female, who officers discovered in the back seat.
Further investigation conducted by the Southeastern Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office revealed that Sabolick had driven the minor from West Virginia to a cabin near his residence in Washington County to engage in various sex acts with the minor.
Some of the sex acts involved abuse such as needle pokes, lighter burns, restraints, strangulation and urination. Items recovered from Sabolick’s hunting cabin and vehicle included panty hose, lubricant and a box of t-pins. Sabolick photographed the minor victim during the sexual abuse.
Court documents detail that Sabolick had met the minor victim when she was approximately 13 or 14 years old. Sabolick possessed several communications and nude images of the minor victim on his phone.
Additional forensic review of Sabolick’s electronics and social media accounts revealed he had communicated with Filipino women he knew through prior trips to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014. In recovered Facebook chats, the women requested money from Sabolick for basic living expenses like food, utility bills, tuition, etc. In exchange, Sabolick requested sexually explicit images of their minor children and offered to send them money for the child sexual abuse material.
For example, in December 2020, Sabolick sent money to a Filipino woman for images of her daughter’s genitalia. Financial records from Paypal, Western Union, Xoom and Moneygram all revealed numerous transactions to the Philippines totaling more than $1,000, including to the Filipino women identified in the investigation on the same days that Sabolick was requesting child pornography from them.
Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Jared Murphey, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Detroit; Washington County Sheriff Larry R. Mincks and Marietta Police Chief Katherine Warden announced the sentence imposed today by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. Assistant United States Attorneys Emily Czerniejewski and S. Courter Shimeall are representing the United States in this case.
The case was investigated by both the Southeastern Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force and the Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, which are operated under Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission.
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