New York:
A New York man who posted a sex video of a 16-year-old girl on the adult website OnlyFans pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of distributing child pornography.
Matthew Richardson, 36, faces five to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced Dec. 19. The settlement was reached in August.
Richardson’s attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment until after the sentencing.
Richardson’s case was cited in July in a Reuters investigation into complaints to police that child sexual abuse material was appearing on OnlyFans.
Richardson was arrested at a highway rest stop in Ohio in December 2022 after running off with the New York teen. The two met in a supermarket and began a sexual relationship. Shortly afterwards, Richardson filmed himself having sex with the girl. On Nov. 9, 2022, he posted the child sexual abuse video to his OnlyFans account under the pseudonym Skylar Ravenwood, according to plea documents filed in the case.
“It was a nightmare,” a relative of the girl told Reuters, which is withholding the person’s name to protect the teen’s identity. “She’s still not doing well.”
The Reuters investigation found 30 complaints in US police and court files that child sexual abuse material appeared on OnlyFans between December 2019 and June 2024. The investigation cited more than 200 explicit videos and images of children on the site, including some adults performing oral sex on toddlers.
OnlyFans did not comment on Richardson’s case. His OnlyFans account remained available on the platform for more than a year and a half after he posted the underage sex video. By mid-June, the video featuring the girl appeared to have been deleted. The account was closed after Reuters asked OnlyFans about the matter.
OnlyFans says no children are allowed on the website and that all content is monitored and child sexual abuse material is quickly removed and reported. The company also says it can deactivate accounts that violate the rules.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)