MINNESOTA – A National Guardsman was indicted for inducing a 14-year-old girl to send him nude photographs of herself through the Internet while he was stationed in Afghanistan, federal officials announced today.
Andrew Schiller, 28, of Lakeville, Minnesota, is charged with one count of production of child pornography. He was indicted last week.
According to the indictment and other documents, these are the allegations:
- From Sept. 23, 2013 to January 2014, Schiller contacted a 14 year-old girl from Minnesota via Skype.
- During repeated communications with the girl, Schiller allegedly requested that she send sexually explicit photos of herself to him.
- The victim allegedly sent several images in response to Schiller’s requests, including at least one sexually explicit image.
- Schiller used various social media platforms to communicate online with dozens of girls between the ages of 13 and 17.
- Among those platforms were MyLOL (“funinlife”), Skype (“thriller_a_schiller3”), Meet Me (“mnfuntimes”) and Facebook.
- Schiller also allegedly used KIK, an instant messaging application for mobile devices that allows users to share photographs and other content.
- After contacting the girls online, Schiller allegedly directed the conversation to sexual topics and attempted to convince the girls to send sexually explicit videos or images of themselves to him.
- Schiller allegedly shared sexually explicit images of himself to encourage the girls to send photographs and videos of themselves, and he sometimes promised money or alcohol in exchange for sexually explicit images or live video chats.
Schiller was ordered detained pending trial. He is presumed innocent until prosecutors are able to prove that he is guilty.