• 06
  • March
    2011

A man from Ennis, Texas, has been charged with the production of child pornography after he posed as a woman on Facebook and asked young men and boys, some of whom were underage, to send him naked photos.

When the boys sent the nude photos, they did not know what they were sending the pictures to a 35-year-old man. Instead, they believed that they were chatting online with an attractive 25-year-old Dallas woman. The profile picture that the man had on his Facebook page was often that of an adult porn star actress. This pretty picture helped the man convince the unsuspecting youth to send him their nude pictures.

According to police, at least three of the boys who sent photos to the Ennis man were under the age 18, meaning that the pictures were child pornography. The charges levied against the man would not be as severe had the boys been of legal age. In fact, there may not have been any charges if the boys had been over the age of 18. Instead, the man is now facing a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for each of the three charges of production of child pornography.

Police were first alerted to the possibility of criminal activity when a student at a local high school sent a nude photo to a "woman" the student met through Facebook. The 16-year-old student sent the photo from a school laptop, which was caught by the school's filter. Police were alerted of this particular nude photo last October.

From that first nude photo, police were able to further their investigations. It is believed that the Ennis man has been running the Facebook profile of a woman and soliciting nude photos under the pretense of being a 25-year-old woman for two years now.

Source: Dallas News "Ennis Man Charged with Child Porn Production for Posing as Woman on Facebook to Entice Teen Boys to Send Him Naked Pictures of Themselves," 2/10/2011