40 Years for Online Predator

⏱ 3 min read

Joshua Black, 38, is headed to federal prison for 40 years after preying on a 13-year-old girl online and then traveling to Florida to continue the abuse in person. Black was sentenced Thursday in Fort Pierce by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, following a guilty plea to production and transportation of child sexual abuse material. The timeline of abuse stretched from 2023 to 2025, as the victim aged 13 to 15.

The feds say Black used video calls to manipulate the girl into sexually explicit acts, capturing screenshots he then hoarded. But it didn’t stop there. Black crossed state lines, flying from Arizona to Indian River County, Florida. He met the victim at a Vero Beach hotel and engaged in further sexual activity, according to court records.

“This defendant used the internet to target a 13-year-old child… and preserve those images for his own gratification,” stated U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. The prosecution hammered home the lasting harm of CSAM, calling it a permanent record of victimization. Along with the 480-month sentence, Black will face a lifetime of supervised release.

The FBI’s Miami Field Office, along with the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jessica Kahn Obenauf and Justin Hoover brought the charges as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative, launched in 2006 to tackle online child exploitation.