A 38-year-old Woodbury man pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to a sextortion scheme involving two teenage girls.
Timothy Lennard Gebhart pleaded guilty to coercing the girls, ages 16 and 14, to engage in sexually explicit conduct by themselves in order to make pornographic videos and images that he then distributed with his computer and cellphone. Authorities say Gebhart did this multiple times between July 2021 and March 2022 while using aliases and posing as someone younger, including as a teenager.
Timothy Lennard Gebhart (Courtesy of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office)
In addition, court documents say that Gebhart extorted money and other items of value from the 16-year-old by threatening to send the photos and videos to her family and friends.
The plea documents says the girls are among six victims — from Minnesota, Texas, Indiana and elsewhere — who authorities were able to identify in Gebhart’s sextortion scheme. Other victims have not been identified.
Gebhart pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to two counts of child pornography production and one count each of child pornography distribution and interstate communication with the intent to extort. He faces a mandatory minimum 15-year prison term at sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled.
“Sextortion — threatening to share explicit images of a victim unless they comply with a predator’s demands — is abhorrent,” Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick said in a statement. “All too often, our children become victims of these monstrous schemes. My office will continue to prosecute these cases to the fullest extent of the law.”
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