A Decatur man will serve a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of producing child porn and stalking two teenage girls he met online.
Emanuel Gray, 22, was found guilty of coercing the teens to send him sexually explicit photos and videos and then posting them online when they rebuked his advances, according to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
“Gray stalked and threatened his victims after they rebuffed his demands,” U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine said in the release. “He terrorized these girls by threatening to post their photographs online if they did not comply.”
In May 2017, Gray met the two girls through various social media apps, including Kik and Snapchat, the release said. The girls, who testified in court that they did not know each other, sent him lewd images and videos of themselves.
One of the victims, who was 14 years old at the time, testified that she and Gray, who was 19 at the time, were in a relationship for a short time after meeting online. When she decided to break it off, Gray harassed and threated her until she sent more explicit photos, the release said. In addition, prosecutors said Gray tried to “expose her” by posting the photos of her on her high school band’s Facebook page.
The other victim, who was 16 at the time, said Gray sent multiple messages to her high school band’s Facebook page and created several fake Instagram accounts to post the explicit photos. Gray was arrested in November 2018 on two counts of producing child porn, two counts of cyberstalking and one count of child porn possession.
After Gray’s prison sentence, he’ll spend five years on supervised released. He’ll also be required to register as a sex offender once he’s out of custody.
The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the Schulenburg, Texas, and Villa Rica police departments.
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