Bronx Man Pleads Guilty To Sexual Exploitation Of A Child

  Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that KELVIN ACOSTA pled guilty today to one count of sexual exploitation of a child.  ACOSTA, who was arrested on March 29, 2016, entered his plea before United States District Judge Paul A. Crotty, and was remanded into federal custody.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said:  “Kelvin Acosta preyed on vulnerable teenagers in a cruel way, contacting them on Facebook, hacking into their accounts and threatening to publish sensitive images and videos of them unless they created and sent to him child pornography.  He has now pled guilty and will face a substantial term of imprisonment.  Together with our partners at the FBI and the NYPD, we are committed to protecting children from those, like Acosta, who seek to exploit, extort, or entice them.”

According to the Complaint, Indictment, and other documents filed in the case, as well as statements made during the plea proceedings:

From December 2013 through November 2015, KELVIN ACOSTA committed “sextortion” by hacking into email accounts belonging to teenage girls and extorting them into producing child pornography for him.  ACOSTA did so by messaging the girls on Facebook and tricking them into revealing personal information that he then exploited to hack their email accounts.  ACOSTA then told his minor victims that he had hacked their email accounts and found compromising material (sex videos and/or nude photographs), which he threatened to send their families, friends, and schools – unless they created child pornography for him via video chat and/or paid him money. 

ACOSTA, 27, of the Bronx, New York, pled guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.  The maximum potential sentence in this case is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as the defendant’s sentence will be determined by the judge.  ACOSTA is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Crotty on January 10, 2017, at 11 a.m.

Any individuals who believe they have information concerning exploitation of children may contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 1-212-384-1000 or https://tips.fbi.gov/.

Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the FBI and the NYPD, and thanked the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office for its valuable cooperation in this matter.