Bloomington Man Sentenced to 40 Years for Child Sex Crimes

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Bloomington man has been sentenced to 480 months in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for producing sexually explicit images and videos of minors.

Ibrahim Ghassan Sleyman, 31, used popular messaging apps to solicit sexually explicit material and sex acts from minor girls and boys, some as young as nine years old, between October 2020 and March 2023.

According to court documents, Sleyman groomed and enticed a minor victim to produce child pornography and engage in sexual activity with him by providing the minor with drugs and gifts. He fled to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), on September 6, 2022, while under investigation.

While a fugitive in the UAE, Sleyman continued to use Snapchat to engage in sexually explicit conversations with minors in the United States, attempting to obstruct justice by contacting minor victims to influence their actions in the ongoing investigation.

On September 15, 2023, UAE authorities returned Sleyman to the United States, and the FBI took him into custody. The United States has identified at least 22 minor victims who Sleyman solicited and used to produce and receive child pornography and attempted to entice to engage in unlawful sexual acts.

Sleyman pleaded guilty to one count of attempted production and production of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography, and one count of enticement of a minor on December 14, 2023. U.S. District Court Judge Donovan W. Frank sentenced Sleyman to 480 months in prison, noting the severity of the offenses and hands-on sexual abuse.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hillary A. Taylor prosecuted the case.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Elk River Police Department, and the Pleasant Hill, Missouri Police Department, with assistance from the St. Paul Police Department and international authorities.