A Southwest Virginia man got a 13-year federal prison sentence on a guilty plea to a single count of coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Michael Tibbs, 25, of Hillsville, admitted to using Discord to purchase sexual content from minors.
According to court documents, Tibbs estimated that he purchased from 10 to 15 underage girls.
He explained that he developed an interest in purchasing sexual content from minors after viewing child pornography on TikTok.
The investigation into Tibbs was initiated in April 2023, when a then-15-year-old minor victim submitted a tip to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, reporting that a man had been grooming her for approximately one year and continually requesting nude images.
FBI agents identified Tibbs as the victim’s groomer and obtained records of his Discord messages. The Discord records revealed that beginning as early as November 2022, Tibbs engaged in sexual chats with several minor girls and paid them to record and send him sexually explicit images and videos.
Agents were able to identify and interview some of the minor victims, who confirmed that Tibbs paid them to record sexually explicit content for him.
On July 18, 2024, agents executed a search warrant at Tibbs’ home and seized his phone, which contained many sexually explicit images and videos of women with indeterminate ages.
Agents were able to identify one of the minor victims, 13 years old, depicted in two of those videos.
Tibbs’ phone also held hundreds of computer-generated and animated images of children, including toddlers, being graphically, sexually abused.
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Chris Graham
