A 22-year-old Kansas man who met a 14-year-old Virginia girl on Twitter, and said he wanted to take her virginity, pleaded guilty this week to federal child exploitation charges.
Andrew Kent, 22, a.k.a. Leo and JeffThePumpkin, from Manhattan, Kan., pled guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of children.
At sentencing, Kent faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years.
“This case demonstrates the importance of knowing not only what your children are doing online, but also with whom they are communicating,” said U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh. “There are dangerous people on the Internet who specifically target children.”
This is the second case involving the social media solicitation involving a 14-year-old girl where an out-of-state man targeted the victim and explicitly said they wanted to have sex with the victim.
According to court documents, in January 2023, Kent met a 14-year-old girl from Lynchburg on Twitter.
Initially, Kent pretended to be a 20-year-old woman named Tris. He used this Tris persona to introduce his victim to a young man named Leo. In reality, both the Tris and Leo fake profiles were controlled by Kent.
Kent told his victim that he was from Roanoke and sent generic pictures of Roanoke in order to further convince her of their geographic proximity to each other.
When they began chatting, the victim informed Kent that she was only 14 years old.
Kent told the her that he was 21 years old, and he was interested in meeting her someday in order to “take a kid’s virginity.”
As the conversations progressed, Kent told the 14-year-old that she needed to call him daddy, sir or master, and then warned her that he might punish her if she failed to do so.
Kent also directed violent language at the victim telling her he wanted to cut her and make her bleed.
After several weeks of chatting, Kent instructed the victim to send him nude photographs and videos of herself, which she provided to him.
On June 16, 2023, Kent was arrested by law enforcement and interviewed by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
At that time, he admitted to using Twitter, Snapchat and Discord to contact minor girls for the purpose of getting them to send him naked pictures. He often used the Tris persona because he found it was easier to get minor girls to talk to him if he pretended to be a young woman.
Kent estimated he solicited and received images of child sexual abuse material from approximately 200 minor girls, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case, and the Lynchburg Police Department provided assistance.
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Crystal Graham
