{"id":184276,"date":"2026-05-05T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/184276\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T12:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:22:09","slug":"hughestown-man-gets-over-a-century-in-prison-in-child-sex-case-wilkes-barre-citizens-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/184276\/","title":{"rendered":"Hughestown man gets over a century in prison in child sex case \u2013 Wilkes-Barre Citizens&#8217; Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Luzerne County man has been sentenced to serve up to 111 years in state prison for traveling to Pike County to molest two children aged 5 and 10, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>John Gately, 46, of Hughestown, was sentenced to 52\u00bd years to 111 years in prison after being convicted on numerous child sex charges, including attempted rape of a child, attempted production of child sexual abuse materials and possession of child sexual abuse materials, Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin said.<\/p>\n<p>During a three-day trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Gately had communicated with a woman about molesting the children. In the process, he sent 48 child sex images, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>Gately was arrested after traveling to Pike County to engage in sexual activities with the children. Investigators then discovered images on Gately\u2019s cellphone depicting toddlers and infants being abused, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>Pike County President Judge Gregory H. Chelak imposed the sentence of up to 111 years in prison, ordering Gately to pay a $31,000 fine as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis sentence will enforce Gately will never be in a position to hunt a child,\u201d Tonkin said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue to seek to root out each and every child predator that walks among us to arrest and prosecute them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Luzerne County man has been sentenced to serve up to 111 years in state prison for traveling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,182,803,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-184276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}