A California man was sentenced on Monday to 15 years in prison for receiving and distributing child pornography relating to an online sextortion scheme, DOJ officials said.
Brian Caputo, 27, of Arvin, California in Kern County pleaded no contest to receipt and distribution of child pornography on May 16, 2016, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and also ordered him to serve 15 years old supervised release.
Caputo admitted that between December 2008 and February 2014 he received images of minors engaging in sexual conduct to his cell phone and email. He also admitted to distributing images to other minors in order to get her to produce additional child pornography.
According to an FBI news release, Caputo used Facebook, Kik Messenger, Text Me!, Yahoo and Dropbox accounts to communicate with dozens of minor females throughout the United States. Caputo posed as a juvenile female during his communication with the girls using the names, Giavanna Derann, Catness Love, Melissa Harpson, Cristal Dafnie, and Britt Any.
Caputo also used these sexually explicit images to convince friends of those pictured to send him pictures of themselves in order to prevent him from revealing the images of their friends. The scheme finally was stopped when on June 2013 he contacted a 12-year-old El Paso, Texas girl. Caputo threatened to distribute sexually explicit pictures of her 11-year-old friend if she did not send him nude photos of herself. The girl told a family member who reported the incident to the police who immediately began investigating.
Through investigation, detectives located evidence indicating that Caputo was victimizing numerous girls including one minor who he convinced to upload more than 660 sexually explicit images of herself to a Dropbox account that he controlled. A search of Caputo’s home led to the finding of his cell phone, which contained hundreds of images of girls 11-15 years old undressing, nude, or engaging in sexually explicit conduct. These images were traded with others online.
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- Brian Caputo: Public Image
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