A former FBI contractor pleaded guilty today to production and receipt of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
According to court documents, beginning in February, Brett Janes, 26, of Arlington, Virginia, enticed a 13-year-old minor he met through playing Valorant, a popular first-person shooter game, to engage in “strip” games on a video chat in Discord.
Janes threatened to commit suicide and sent the victim payments through CashApp to convince the victim to create and send him CSAM.
He convinced a 12-year-old boy to produce CSAM and attempted to entice another minor boy to produce CSAM.
Janes also admitted to purchasing hundreds of videos and images of CSAM through Telegram.
Janes pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of children, including using children to produce CSAM, and one count of receipt of child pornography.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb.
27, 2024, and faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.
S.
Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M.
Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.
S.
Attorney Jessica D.
Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division made the announcement.
The FBI, Arlington County Police Department, and Galloway Township Police Department in New Jersey investigated the case.
Trial Attorney McKenzie Hightower of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.
S.
Attorney Laura Withers for the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Justice Department.
Led by U.
S.
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.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.
justice.
gov/psc.
An indictment is merely an allegation.
All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Breaking News