A former foster parent in Cambria County who molested multiple young boys in his care ranging in age from 3 to 8 and filmed himself doing it will spend 30 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines, presiding in Johnstown, imposed that term Thursday on Ronald Oshensky Jr., 43, describing him as “pure evil.”
The judge told him his crimes were among the most heinous she had ever seen in her 20-year law enforcement career and her three years on the federal bench. Haines had been a military prosecutor and an assistant U.S. attorney before she became a judge.
She said giving Oshensky 30 years, the statutory maximum, was the easiest sentencing decision she’s ever had to make.
Oshensky’s lawyer asked for 24 years, largely on the grounds that Oshensky didn’t share his videos with any other pedophiles, but prosecutors wanted the full 30.
“Predators like Ronald Oshensky exploit the very systems put into place to prevent vulnerable children from being subjected to abusive living situations,” said William S. Walker, agent in charge of the Philadelphia office of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.
HSI worked with the Johnstown police and the FBI in building the case against Oshensky.
He pleaded guilty in the summer to a count of producing child porn in connection with molesting seven children in his care, placed there by various county Children and Youth agencies in Western Pennsylvania.
Oshensky had been approved by CYS as a foster parent from 2009 to 2016 and took in 20 children over that time at his home on Birch Avenue.
While he presented an image as a caring protector, he was really preying on children who had already been the victims of abuse or neglect.
His secret life as a pedophile first came to light in 2017 when an 11-year-old boy in Oshensky’s custody, whom he later adopted, told police that he’d been molested since age 6. Oshensky initially lied that he didn’t molest the boy but later confessed after he failed a polygraph exam.
Another former foster child, an adult who was living with Oshensky, then found a videotape in Oshensky’s bedroom trash can. It showed him sexually abusing a young boy. Johnstown police charged him with filming sex with a minor, and the district attorney then contacted Homeland Security for help in putting together a federal case.
Agents found a second tape in Oshensky’s attic that showed him molesting sleeping boys. In interviews, agents determined that Oshensky gave the boys melatonin to put them to sleep so he could molest them without them knowing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold Bernard said Oshensky’s pattern of abuse was the worst child sex case he’s ever seen.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
