National Guardsman Indicted for Child Porn
A Minnesota National Guardsman was indicted last week for inducing a 14 year-old girl to send him nude photos over the Internet while he was deployed to Afghanistan.
Andrew Schiller, 28, of Lakeville, Minnesota, has been charged with one count of production of child pornography. Schiller was ordered to be detained pending trial by U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson of the District of Minnesota.
According to allegations in the indictment and the government’s request for pretrial detention, between Sep. 23, 2013, and Jan. 12, 2014, Schiller contacted a 14-year-old girl from Minnesota via Skype. During repeated communications with the girl, Schiller allegedly requested that she send sexually explicit photos of herself to him.
The victim allegedly sent several images in response to Schiller’s requests, including at least one sexually explicit image. According to additional allegations in the government’s request for pretrial detention, Schiller used various social media platforms to communicate online with dozens of girls between the ages of 13 and 17.
After establishing online contact with the girls, Schiller allegedly directed the conversation to sexual topics and attempted to convince the girls to send sexually explicit videos or images of themselves to him. Schiller allegedly shared sexually explicit images of himself to encourage the girls to send photographs and videos of themselves, and he sometimes promised money or alcohol in exchange for sexually explicit images or live video chats.
The charges contained in the indictment and the allegations contained in the government’s request for pretrial detention are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (see video below), a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice and the Criminal Division’s 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.
