Markell Smith, Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, Pennsylvania 2024

A Pittsburgh man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexually exploiting minors, including one victim under the age of 12, and making threatening interstate communications.

Markell Smith, 25, was sentenced in federal court to a total sentence of 210 months' imprisonment followed by 10 years of supervised release on his conviction of production and attempted production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor and for making threatening interstate communications with the intent to extort.

According to information presented to the court, Smith used the Instagram username '7deadlysins19' to threaten the minor female and successfully demanded that she create and send to him, over the internet, sexually explicit images of herself.

As part of his plea agreement with the government, Smith admitted to committing similar crimes against seven other minor victims in 2018 and 2019. He used many different usernames to extort the minors, threatening to hack them and their family members, and to physically harm the minors' family if the minors did not send to Smith sexually explicit images.

Smith's threats made the children think they had no choice but to participate in their own victimization. At arrest, Smith admitted to his criminal conduct, telling investigators that he 'liked to hear and see the terror in his victims.'

Assistant United States Attorney Heidi M. Grogan prosecuted this case on behalf of the government. United States Attorney Cindy K. Chung commended the FBI Pittsburgh Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation—Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Police Department, as well as the Red Bank Police Department (New Jersey); the FBI—Spokane (Washington) Violent Crimes Against Children Task Force; the Walton County Sheriff's Office (Florida), and the Winchester Police Department (Kentucky), for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Smith.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/pittsburgh-man-sentenced-17-years-sexual-exploitation-minor