A Forest Hills man was ordered to serve a decade in federal prison for making a 12-year-old girl take sexually explicit photos and spreading them on social media when she refused to continue, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Christopher Arroyo, 26, was charged with coercing and enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison plus five years’ supervised release to follow Arroyo’s prison sentence, during which time he must register as a sex offender, and he will not be allowed unsupervised contact with minors.
According to trial testimony, in 2012, Arroyo used Facebook and other social media platforms to meet a 12-year-old victim and then enticed her to take sexually explicit images of herself and engage in other sexual conduct.
Prosecutors said Arroyo continued to exploit the girl for years, and when the victim refused to comply with his demands, Arroyo threatened and harassed her, stating that he would publicly post images of her across the Internet.
Three years later, in 2015, Arroyo created multiple fake social media accounts and posted explicit images of the victim. The FBI traced Arroyo’s online activity to his residence in Forest Hills and executed a search of his home, seizing multiple computers and other electronic devices.
A forensic examination of those devices revealed that Arroyo had archived images of the victim in an electronic folder bearing her name.
“Arroyo sexually exploited a child through social media, using threats and harassment to publicly shame the victim with the explicit images he enticed her to create,” stated United States Attorney Richard P. Donoghue. “Today’s sentence will serve not only to protect the public from the defendant for a significant period of time, but it will also serve as a message to other child predators using the Internet to target victims that they will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
