<p class="title">A YouTube musical celebrity was sentenced Friday in a Chicago courtroom to 10 years in prison for enticing girls as young as 14 to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Austin Jones, who posted online videos of himself performing songs for a fan base of primarily teenage girls, was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of child pornography.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As part of his plea, Jones admitted to a total of six identified victims and approximately 30 attempts to persuade other girls to send him child pornography, according to prosecutors.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A federal judge on Friday imposed a 10-year prison sentence on the 26-year-old, who could have gotten as little as five years or as many as 20, according to sentencing guidelines.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Prosecutors, pointing to text messages, alleged in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court that Jones targeted young girls under the pretence of “auditions” for modelling and other opportunities.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“I’m just trying to help you! I know you’re trying your hardest to prove you’re my biggest fan. And I don’t want to have to find someone else,” Jones told one 14-year-old victim via Facebook messenger, according to the court filing.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Prosecutors said Facebook tipped off the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children about Jones’s conversations with 14- and 15-year-old girls using the social media service’s private messaging feature.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Jones’s defence lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to five years on the basis of mitigating circumstances having to do with the man’s childhood.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“Austin was a victim of sexual and emotional abuse by his father from age six until age 10. He was young, helpless and scared,” his attorney’s wrote in a court filing.</p>
<p class="title">A YouTube musical celebrity was sentenced Friday in a Chicago courtroom to 10 years in prison for enticing girls as young as 14 to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Austin Jones, who posted online videos of himself performing songs for a fan base of primarily teenage girls, was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of child pornography.</p>.<p class="bodytext">As part of his plea, Jones admitted to a total of six identified victims and approximately 30 attempts to persuade other girls to send him child pornography, according to prosecutors.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A federal judge on Friday imposed a 10-year prison sentence on the 26-year-old, who could have gotten as little as five years or as many as 20, according to sentencing guidelines.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Prosecutors, pointing to text messages, alleged in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court that Jones targeted young girls under the pretence of “auditions” for modelling and other opportunities.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“I’m just trying to help you! I know you’re trying your hardest to prove you’re my biggest fan. And I don’t want to have to find someone else,” Jones told one 14-year-old victim via Facebook messenger, according to the court filing.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Prosecutors said Facebook tipped off the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children about Jones’s conversations with 14- and 15-year-old girls using the social media service’s private messaging feature.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Jones’s defence lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to five years on the basis of mitigating circumstances having to do with the man’s childhood.</p>.<p class="bodytext">“Austin was a victim of sexual and emotional abuse by his father from age six until age 10. He was young, helpless and scared,” his attorney’s wrote in a court filing.</p>