Huntington man sentenced to 17 years for producing child pornography, coercing minors

A man who lived in the Riverside Apartments in the Huntington area has been sentenced to 184 months behind bars for producing child pornography, enticing minors to engage in sexually-explicit conduct online and recording the acts.

Lucas Aronson, 31, was sentenced Friday morning in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Virginia in Alexandria, according to a news release. In addition to the prison time, Aronson must pay his victims $20,000 in restitution, register as a sex offender and be supervised for life after his release.

Aronson was convicted of the charges in an Aug. 23 plea agreement. As part of the plea, Aronson agreed to cooperate with authorities on future investigations.

In a Statement of Facts signed by Aronson and his attorney, Aronson admitted numerous crimes, including streaming an explicit video of an adult male and a toddler female engaged in sexual conduct on omeagle.com, a chat website that allows users to socialize one-on-one anonymously. That particular video caught the attention of the website, setting in motion the chain of events that led to Aronson’s arrest. Omeagle.com reported the video to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who in turn contacted the authorities.

Fairfax County Police obtained a warrant and raided Aronson’s apartment on Cameron Run Terrace in August 2015. Police found a thumb drive in Aronson’s sock drawer containing multiple recordings where he pretended to be an underage girl to chat with minor girls, asking them to take their clothes off on webcam.

According to the Statement of Facts, Aronson’s thumb drive contained a folder saying “STOP!!! My personal folders\If anything should happen to me; this was my personal info. If you ever had any respect for me, go no further, Destroy this usb.”

The Statement of Facts goes on to describe the numerous sexually explicit recordings found on the drive, including interactions with a minor girl in Texas and a 14-year-old girl in Florida.

U.S. Attorney Jay V. Prabhu had asked the court for 25 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

“[Aronson’s] child-pornography offenses are serious and several. This is not a case of simple possession or receipt of child pornography,” Prabhu wrote in a sentencing argument. “The defendant produced child pornography, victimizing multiple real minor girls. The defendant created a scheme of deceit that he used repeatedly to achieve his criminal goals.”