A male babysitter from California grinned as he was jailed for 707 years for molesting more than a dozen young boys in his care.
Matthew Antonio Zakrzewski was convicted of sexually abusing 16 boys between the ages of two and 14, and of showing another piece of child pornography last month.
The 34-year-old babysitter carried out the sordid abuse campaign from 2014 until his arrest in May 2019. Many of his crimes were filmed and played out in court.
“We saw how you turned sexual assault into a game,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger told him Friday.
During his sentencing, the grandmother of one of his victims pleaded with Menninger, “A death sentence is too good for him… Please don’t show any mercy to this animal.”
Matthew Antonio Zakrzewski was sentenced to 707 years in prison for sexually abusing 16 boys and showing another child pornography
He was convicted of 34 crimes, including lewd and lascivious acts with a minor after investigators discovered video evidence of his sickening crimes
Zakrzewski, from Costa Mesa, labeled himself a male nanny or “manny” and bragged about his experience as a child care provider
Zakrzewski, of Costa Mesa, kept eye contact with his victim’s families as they read their impact statements.
He told them he wanted their sons to “break through the clouds and shine bright,” but did not apologize, ABC7 reports.
Zakrzewski’s crimes came to light after a family in Laguna Beach reported him for inappropriately touching their son.
He was subsequently convicted of 34 crimes, including lewd and lascivious acts with a minor after investigators discovered video evidence of his sick crimes.
At the sentencing, the families of his victims cried as they read statements about the emotional impact of the therapy they had to undergo.
One mother described having to take her 12-year-old son for tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
“I regretted my son’s childhood when he was a child,” she said. ‘I can’t look at his sweet baby pictures anymore without crying. All I can see is a child who was abused and manipulated into not saying anything.
‘Was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted? Because I don’t understand how you could think this would end any differently.’
Zakrzewski’s victims were between the ages of two and 14 and came from throughout Southern California
At his sentencing on Friday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger told him, “We saw how you turned sexual assault into a game,” after prosecutors played sickening videos of the abuse that he had filmed himself.
The victims’ families wept in court as they detailed the horrific impact his crimes had on their children, labeling him an “animal” as they begged the judge to show “no mercy.”
The mother of a child who was just three when he was targeted told the court how Zakrzewski taught him to keep secrets.
Others labeled him a “predator” who “stole the souls of their children.”
Sickening video footage was shown in court that showed Zakrzewski used games to “normalize” the abuse, Deputy District Attorney Juliet Oliver said.
One of the videos shows a victim lying naked on top of him while the suspect “fondled” him, prosecutors said.
Another video showed him touching himself with a boy on his lap, while a third video showed him playing a game called ‘rocket ship’.
While sitting with the victim on his lap, he said, “It feels like we’re having sex,” Oliver said.
Zakrzewski had billed himself on his website as a “manny,” who not only watched over the kids but also provided a fun “buddy” experience.
The couple who initially raised an issue about Zakrzewski hired him through one of his many babysitting websites.
A mother described having to take her 12-year-old son for tests for sexually transmitted diseases as a result of Zakrzewski’s crimes
Zakrzewski did not apologize in court to his victims’ families, but told them he hoped their sons “break through the clouds and shine brightly”
Investigators from the Laguna Beach Police Department’s Major Crimes & Intelligence Unit soon learned about a seven-year-old alleged victim from Los Angeles.
They soon learned that there were ten more alleged victims throughout Southern California.
Zakrzewski was one of the creators of “My Sitter/Buddy,” a website dedicated to “connecting Orange County children with quality, pre-screened sitters – every day, any time of the week.”
“It was actually sickening to me and the rest of the detectives that we were focusing all our attention on this investigation,” said Laguna Beach Police Sgt. Jim Cota told KTLA in 2019.
On his website, which has now been taken offline, he says he has more than six years of experience in childcare, caring for children between three months and fourteen years old. He also offered overnight and travel care.
‘At a very young age I discovered how much fun it was to work with children and have a positive impact on their lives through the ‘Buddy Program’ at my high school.’
‘Now I am a career manny and my experience in childcare of more than 6 years ranges from 3 months to 14 years including special needs… I think the reason I connect easily with children is because I am not there alone to monitor, I’m in,’ he writes on his website.
The pedophile’s now-defunct babysitting websites say he discovered the ‘fun’ of working with children early in his life
District Attorney Todd Spitzer called his crimes the ‘ultimate betrayal by a babysitter’
On the site, he is pictured shirtless with young boys in a pool and smiling during a photo shoot.
“These young boys were forced to endure unimaginable terror as a result of the ultimate betrayal by a babysitter,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
Although the punishment is long, Zakrzewsk is not the longest punishment.
Oklahoma child rapist Charles Scott Robinson holds the record for the longest prison sentence given to one person on multiple counts.
He was sentenced to 30,000 years on December 23, 1994, 5,000 years for each of the six child rape charges against him.