SYRACUSE – A 26-year-old Schenectady man pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his plot to manipulate children into sending him explicit videos.
As part of his plea, Valle admitted he pretended to be a hacker online, threatening to delete or take over the social media accounts of girls between the ages of about 10 and 15 if they did not send him sexually explicit material, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
The threats, made from at least October 2021 through December 2022, worked on several children, who complied and sent him explicit videos. That December, Valle also had a separate collection of child pornography he obtained from the internet on his home computer, according to prosecutors.
Valle will face between 15 and 30 years in federal prison for the child exploitation charge and up to 20 years for possessing child pornography when he is sentenced Aug. 17 before Judge Anne M. Nardacci in Albany. He will be required to serve between five years and life on supervised release after his sentence ends, and will be required to register as a sex offender, as well as having to pay restitution to his victims and forfeit the devices he used to commit the crimes.
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