OnlyFans user pleads guilty in child pornography case

Oct. 8 – A New York man who posted a sex video of a 16-year-old girl on the adults-only 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 agreement 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 sentencing.

Richardson’s case was cited in a Reuters investigation in July into complaints to police that child abuse material was being posted on OnlyFans.

Richardson was arrested at an Ohio highway rest stop in December 2022 after eloping with the New York teenager. The two met in a grocery store and began a sexual relationship. Shortly afterwards, Richardson recorded himself having sex with the girl. On November 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, who is withholding the person’s name to protect the teenager’s identity. “She’s still not feeling well.”

The Reuters investigation found 30 complaints in U.S. 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 young children.

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 tape. In mid-June, the video with the girl appeared to have been removed. The account was closed after Reuters asked OnlyFans about the case.

The company states that children are not allowed on its website, all content is reviewed, and any child sexual abuse material will be promptly removed and reported. The company also says it can disable accounts that violate its rules.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.