Indian American Man Pleads Guilty to Multiple Sex Crimes Charges, Including Distributing Child Porn
- Mayank M. Patel, of Lexington, Kentucky, admitted to investigators he was a part of and contributed to 30 online communities which traded sexually explicit images of minors.
Mayank M. Patel of Lexington, Kentucky, has pleaded guilty to federal charges of sex-related crimes, the Department of Justice announced last week. Additionally, the Indian American admitted to investigators he was a part of and contributed to 30 online communities which traded sexually explicit images of minors.
He accepted a plea agreement on March 2 in U.S. Eastern District Court to one count of producing visual depictions involving a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and one count of distributing and producing visual depictions
According to court documents uploaded by the Lexington Times, one site Patel used was a “secure chat platform.” The site was not named in court records but was instead referred to as “Chat Application A.”
His investigation began, court papers said, “because he was a member of private communities and at least one private group for at least three months and was a member of additional private groups for an unknown length of time, and these groups and communities were involved in the distribution of child pornography within Chat Application A.”
Chats on the application were protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning only the sender and receiver of a chat have access to the content, and nothing is stored on any servers once delivered.
Court documents say members of the Electronic Crime Branch with Kentucky State Police went to Patel’s home on Jan. 23 “because he was suspected of distributing and possessing explicit material when his phone number was found on dozens of online communities tied to child sex abuse.”
Patel permitted officers to search his electronics, including an iPhone and Apple MacBook where officers found videos and photos depicting obscene material and harm to young children, according to court documents. He admitted to investigators that he created explicit images and videos with a victim who was 7 years old at the time, according to court documents.
He told investigators all the images were produced using his cell phone and admitted he distributed graphic images that involved minors in the trading communities in exchange for memberships to other online sites.
He faces a maximum of 50 years in prison, $500,000 in fines and supervised release between 10 years and life.