O'BANION, CHRISTOPHER .jpg

Chris O'Banion, 42

(Cuyahoga County Sheriff's department)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A county judge today sentenced the ex-husband of Brooklyn's school board president to 18 years in prison after he admitted to using a phony Facebook identity to lure a 16-year-old student to his home and then pressured her to have sex.

Chris O'Banion, 42, pleaded guilty last month to charges including sexual battery, pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor, menacing by stalking and possessing criminal tools.

The child pornography charges were based on nude photos he asked the student to send him.

Brooklyn School Board President Jennifer O'Banion filed for divorce from her husband of almost 14 year after he was charged. The divorce was recently finalized, according to court records. She was re-elected by her peers as board president in January.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a release from his office that Jennifer O'Banion didn't cooperate with investigators.

"Despite a lack of cooperation by the defendant's wife ...the prosecution team succeeded in demonstrating that Mr. O'Banion deserves a long prison sentence," McGinty said.

Brooklyn school officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

He said the judge's sentence would protect other victims from O'Banion for nearly two decades and sends a "message to would-be sexual predators that they too will pay for the harm they cause."

O'Banion faced more than 25 years in prison. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell also ordered him to register as a sex offender every 90 days for the rest of his life after leaving prison.

When he pleaded guilty to charges last month, prosecutors called him a "diabolical sexual predator" to targeted a victim in the same district where his wife served.

Assistant County Prosecutor Holly Welch also said O'Banion threated his victim and her family after she reported the incident.

The victim told Brooklyn police detectives earlier this year that she met O'Banion online in June of 2013 through a social media profile in which O'Banion was posing as a high school student.

Months later, the then-16-year-old told police he invited her to his home where he coerced her to have sex, prosecutors said. The student also told police that O'Banion had asked her to send him nude photos and engage in sex acts during video phone calls.

O'Banion was picked up on charges in late March in New Orleans by the Louisiana Attorney General's office and the United States Secret Service.