A New York father is facing up to 250 years in prison after admitting to a court Monday that he posed as his daughter’s online boyfriend so he could extort nude photographs from her.
The Herkimer County man, who was not identified to protect the identity of the 14-year-old victim, pleaded guilty in federal court to 12 counts of enticing a child to produce child pornography and receiving and sending child porn, Syracuse.com reports.
He also is facing sexual abuse charges in Herkimer County Court.
Court papers revealed that the man set up fake accounts with Instagram, AOL and a texting service in September 2013 and started chatting online with his daughter, posing as a 16-year-old boy from Watertown.
The pair started calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend – even though they never met. By November, the girl told him she wanted to break up with him – but she had already sent him sexually explicit photos after repeated requests.
The girl's father, posing as the boyfriend, repeatedly threatened his daughter online, tricking her into sending nude photos of herself to him, court papers said, according to Syracuse.com.
"I tell u what/ u want to be gone/ then send me nudes and close ups and I will let u go," one text from the man read.
"I told you that a bunch of times when we were dating that I don't like those pics and now you are threatening me that if I don't send you those then you'll send my dad the ones I sent you before?" the girl responded. "My life is ruined."
After the girl had broken up with him, she received a text message from the boy’s account, from someone claiming to be his mother, stating that he had committed suicide, court papers said.
At one point, the father mentioned to the girl that he had received her nude photos from the so-called boyfriend, according to the court papers.
"Keep in mind the relationship between the defendant and the victim in this case, which makes this all that much more egregious," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Fletcher told U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes.
The father was busted a year later after the girl reported to a school nurse that her father was sexually abusing her, and a police investigation of the fake boyfriend’s texts revealed that they had originated from her own home, Syracuse.com reports.
The father is set to be sentenced in July and faces up to 250 years in prison.
"It is very emotional," he told Sannes in court on Monday. "I'm giving away many years of my life."
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