AUGUSTA, Ga. — A Georgia man was sentenced to years in federal prison Wednesday after he admitted to pressuring an 11-year-old girl into producing child pornography, a release from the United States Attorney's Office said.
Keyshawn Cooper, a 21-year-old man from Waynesboro, Georgia, was sentenced to 200 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to charges in the Southern District of Georgia U.S. Court in Augusta. He was also ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution and serve 15 years of supervised release.
Court documents stated that on May 9, 2021, Cooper met the child online while playing a video game in the "Grand Theft Auto" series. Cooper pretended to be a young girl on an online internet communication platform where he was successfully able to convince the 11-year-old who lived in Missouri to send him sexually explicit images to his phone, the release stated.
The child's mom later found the images that were sent to Cooper on her kid's phone. She then reported it to police in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where police requested the help of the FBI to investigate and find Cooper, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
After locating Cooper, FBI agents found the images sent by the 11-year-old and additional sexually inappropriate images of other children that were saved on a phone that law enforcement seized.
“The internet is a very important and useful resource, but unfortunately can also be used for illegal activity as criminals like Cooper seek to prey on the most vulnerable of our population,” said Brian Ozden, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “Let this be a reminder to parents and caregivers, people can pretend to be anyone online, and you need to remain vigilant with monitoring your child’s online gaming activity and educating them about the risks of communicating with strangers.”
Cooper will be forced to register as a sex offender immediately after being released from his prison sentence, according to the court.
