Robert Ables from Hutchins, Texas has been sentenced to 80 years in prison for producing child pornography.
In November, 2015 the Saskatchewan Ice unit began investigating a complaint from a Southern Saskatchewan Detachment of a young girl being exploited through a popular social media application. They found out where the offender was communicating from and his usernames. The information was forwarded to U.S. authorities which resulted in Ables being arrested in December, 2016. His home was also searched.
Ables has been in custody since then and pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography and two counts of producing child pornography.
The ICE unit says Ables used a social media application to contact young girls. While talking to them he would convince them to send nude pictures of themselves and then coerced the girls to send more sexually explicit images by threatening to spread their pictures further on social media.
“The sexual victimization and exploitation of these young girls is profoundly sad,” said U.S. Attorney Parker.
He adds, “it is also, obviously, a serious crime for which the penalties are justifiably significant.”