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YouTube Star Austin Jones Admits To Soliciting 'Twerk' Videos From Underage Girls in Child Porn Case
YouTube singer Austin Jones has reportedly admitted to asking girls as young as 14 to send him videos exposing themselves. He's now looking at five years in prison, at least.
Popular YouTuber Austin Jones has pled guilty to receiving child pornography after admitting to persuading numerous underage girls to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves.
The 26-year-old singer from Bloomingdale, Illinois was first arrested in June 2017 at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago upon his return from an international tour, Rolling Stone reports. A criminal complaint, which accused Jones of exchanging messages with two young girls on Facebook and pressuring them to produce pornographic videos, charged Jones with two counts of producing child pornography, according to an earlier release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois.
Jones has since reached a plea agreement and entered a guilty plea to one count of receipt of child pornography, according to a Friday release from the office. Jones’ sentencing is scheduled for May 3, where he faces a prison sentence of five to 20 years, the release states. He may also face a fine of $250,000, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Jones admitted to exchanging messages with six underage girls via Facebook in 2016 and 2017, and to using Facebook on 30 other occasions to attempt to solicit more pornographic videos from underage girls, according to Friday’s release. Jones reportedly confessed to asking the girls to film and send him pornographic videos. He told some of them that the videos could be a way to “prove” that they were his biggest fans, and told others that the videos were related to a modeling opportunity, the release states.
The criminal complaint contains graphic descriptions of Jones’ alleged actions. When messaging with one victim, a 14-year-old girl, Jones reportedly instructed her to dance with her buttocks facing the camera and “talk about [her] age the whole time.” When messaging with a second victim, also age 14, Jones allegedly told her that she was “so lucky” to have his attention but she needed to “prove” that she was his biggest fan, and he continuously prompted her to send him videos exposing her buttocks and anus.
“I have to see your butthole to know for sure that you care 100%,” he is alleged to have written in one message.
He admitted during an interview with Homeland Security Investigations to masturbating while watching the videos the girls sent him, according to the complaint.
Jones himself has endured “repeated sexual trauma” as a child, his lawyer has disclosed, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He remains free on bail until his sentencing to attend counseling, USA Today reports.
Jones was accused in 2015 of soliciting sexually explicit videos from young girls, according to Alternative Press. He later admitted to asking young female fans for “twerking” videos in a statement to the outlet, but claimed that he never asked for anything else, a position he doubled down on in a 2015 YouTube video titled, “Setting The Record Straight.”
“I used to ask fans for twerking videos. Yes, twerking, the dance move,” he said. “It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s not something that I think is right, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
[Photo:YouTube/Austin Jones]
