A New York man has been charged for allegedly coercing teenage girls from Michigan for child pornography.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Friday, the man has been identified as William T. Phillips and is charged with producing, attempting to produce and conspiracy to produce child pornography; conspiracy to receive child pornography; conspiracy to access with intent to view child pornography; coercion and enticement of a minor and participating in a child pornography enterprise.
During their investigation, the FBI was able to identify more than 50 minor victims, with even more unidentified, who "remove clothing, engage in sexual activity, and otherwise pose for users on various chatrooms," on a certain website.
The criminal complaint states that the suspect worked with a group to identify teenage girls, between 14 and 18 years old, to engage in sexual activity on webcams so they could record it.
According to the complaint, at least six victims were all from Michigan.
In an interview last month, one of the victims told agents that the group of men, including Phillips, encouraged her to display her naked body, among other things, on a webcamera.
When police arrested Phillips, they found him lying on a bed with a laptop on the floor of the bedroom. Multiple chatrooms from the website were open on the web browser at the time.
When they checked his laptop, they found many child porn videos and images, and a folder entitled "downloads." One of those videos displayed a man raping a minor girl.
You can read the entire complaint below.
NY man accused of coercing MI teens for porn by WXYZ-TV Channel 7 Detroit on Scribd
