Man Who Shared Child Sexual Abuse Photos Online Sentenced To 7 Years In Jail

A 28-year-old man from Lee County, Florida has received jail time for sharing images depicting sexual abuse of children to a woman he met on an internet dating service, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Barber of the Middle District of Florida sentenced Kyle William O’Brien to seven years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty on Dec. 26, 2019 to distributing the images, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement.

The Estero native was also sentenced to a lifetime term of supervised release and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Citing court documents, the DOJ said they were alerted to O'Brien after authorities received a report from a woman he had met online through a dating app who claimed he had sent her images depicting sexual abuse of children.

The two had met in person on Feb. 1, 2019, where the woman claimed she saw O'Brien "looking at and swiping through images on his cellphone that depicted the sexual exploitation and abuse of children," according to the DOJ's statement.

O'Brien also messaged the woman later using the dating the app and invited her to watch a child exploitation video on his television.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents entered O'Brien's home on April 25, 2019 while servicing a search warrant and seized his cellular phone.

According to the DOJ, a forensic examination of O'Brien's device revealed that it had been used to search for images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of young children.

His phone had also been used to search for similar content and contained more than 100 hyperlinks to websites that hosted such materials.

O'Brien's sentence comes weeks after an Indianapolis man and woman were each handed down with 45 years in federal prison for sexually exploiting and producing pornography with a child, as well as distributing and receiving child pornography.

Bennie Schuck II and Amber Talley, aged 46 and 36, respectively, sexually abused a 12-year-old girl and exchanged images of the abuse with each other. According to the victim, the abuse had occurred for at least a year.

Schuck, who told police he had sexually exploited the victim "fewer than 20 times," also sent the images of the abuse to a woman through the internet, which ultimately led to their discovery and arrest.