VIRGINIA
A federal judge on Friday sentenced a man who worked at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to 17 years in prison for inducing a minor to take sexually explicit images and send them to him.
David Edward De Vere, 53, a former Equal Employment Specialist at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, plead guilty on Sept. 27 to the production of child pornography, according to officials.
According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, De Vere met and began exchanging sexually explicit messages online with a 16-year-old minor living in Colorado in March 2017.
During the course of these communications, De Vere induced the minor to take and send him multiple images of the minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, according to authorities.
De Vere also encouraged another adult with access to the minor in Colorado to sexually abuse the minor, and then traveled to Colorado in April 2017 in an unsuccessful attempt to sexually abuse the minor himself, officials said.