An Oak Lawn man whose life sentence for murder and arson was overturned in 2021 following advocacy by the Innocence Project was sentenced Monday to five years in prison after pleading guilty to traveling to meet a 13-year-old after exchanging explicit texts, according to court records.
Francisco Nanez, 61, was arrested in May 2024 after the Cook County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Unit learned a minor had been receiving inappropriate messages on a social media app from Nanez, the sheriff’s office said. An investigator began posing as the child and continued the conversation by text, according to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office did not say if the child was male or female.
Nanez sent sexually explicit messages and requested nude photos from the child, the sheriff’s office alleged. He then allegedly arranged to meet the child outside a Berwyn convenience store, where sheriff’s office investigators arrested him when he arrived. A forensic analysis of Nanez’s cell phone turned up conversations he had with the victim, along with non-explicit photos of the child, according to the sheriff’s office…