On Tuesday, a former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation attorney from Arlington, Virginia was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "conspiring to sexually exploit numerous children."
Mark Black, 50, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement.
In a press release, the Department of Justice explained that between 2018 and 2021, Black had been a member two online groups "dedicated to locating prepubescent girls online and convincing the girls to livestream themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct."
He and his unnamed co-conspirators then "covertly recorded these livestreams and shared the videos with each other."
During the investigation, it was discovered that Black had recorded a prepubescent girl engaging in sexually explicit conduct online and groomed another to do the same. One of his co-conspirators "hacked into that girl's live-video feed and recorded the sexual acts before sending them to Black."
Between July 2019 and March 2022, Black and the co-conspirator were members of separate groups where they, and others, shared child sexual abuse material.
When Black's electronic devices were seized, authorities located over 172,000 images of suspected child sexual abuse, more than 1,300 of which depicted the girls identified as his victims.
After pleading guilty, Black was informed that he faced a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison but could be locked up for life.
The case against Black was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, which the DOJ describes as "a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse."
Launched in May 2006 by the DOJ, it is "led by US Attorneys' Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims."
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