Roberts in February pleaded guilty to producing child pornography and coercing minors.
Credit: Butler County Jail
Credit: Butler County Jail
Roberts in February pleaded guilty to producing child pornography and coercing minors.
“From California to New York, Texas to Illinois, Washington to Florida, the United Kingdom to Australia, no minors anywhere were safe from Roberts so long as Roberts had access to the internet. It stops now in the Southern District of Ohio,” said Parker. “Roberts was opportunistic; his victims ranged in age from 6 to 17 years old. They were white, Black, Hispanic and Native American. They were male and female. In all, FBI agents fully identified 57 minors whom Roberts coerced into producing 502 distinct images and videos of child pornography.”
Roberts possessed more than 11,000 child pornography images, which includes 120 more victims depicted in 216 files who remain unidentified.
Roberts exploited young victims online and sexually abused victims in person beginning in 2007, according to court documents.
He used two schemes to coerce minors into creating child pornography. One scheme was bribing children with video game gift cards to online games such as “Fortnite” in exchange for sexually explicit images and videos. The second scheme was pretending to be a teen girl online to entice and coerce minors to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves. He also committed hands-on sexual offenses to at least three minor victims, documents stated.
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