DOJ: Marion, VA man to spend 27 years in prison for coercing female minors to send him sexually explicit photos

A Marion, VA man will spend more than 25 years in prison for posing as a pre-teen female, contacting female minors and coercing them to send sexually explicit photos to him using Snapchat.

Hunter Royal previously pleaded guilty to one count of persuading, inducing, enticing, and coercing minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of such conduct and received his jail sentence in US District Court in Abingdon on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Royal admitted to using several different Snapchat accounts to contact minors, some as young as 12 and convince them to take explicit photos, then use blackmail threats to obtain more sexually explicit imagery from them while he also distributed some of the photos he obtained.