gavel
Aug. 14, 2015 Staff Report
A 24-year-old Corona man was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison Tuesday for inducing young girls to engage in sexual performances via video chat, which he recorded.
Jorel Fowler, of 57th Avenue, pleaded guilty on July 10, 2015, to two separate indictments charging him with two counts of use of a child in a sexual performance, according to Richard A Brown, the Queens District Attorney.
Fowler had been enticing young girls into playing “The Game,” an online program he created. Using the website Omegle, Fowler awarded young teens points for performing sexual acts upon his request.
District Attorney Brown said, “The facts of this case are deplorable. The defendant took advantage of young girls, manipulating them into playing a vile game and recording it for his sexual gratification.”
The investigation into Fowler’s activities originated in March 2013 after the mother of an Oklahoma teen reported an incident to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The mother reported that her then-13-year-old daughter had been communicating online and through text messages with an adult male in Queens for over two years.
Fowler had sent naked pictures to the young girl, had requested that she send him naked pictures of herself, and was trying to convince her to meet him at a hotel so they could have sexual intercourse.
In February 2014, police went to the Fowler’s home and removed his laptop computer and an iPhone5.
Fowler was arrested in March 2014 following a forensic examination of the laptop’s hard drive that recovered seven videos titled Sarah, Tiffany & Britney, Katelyn, Julia, Gabrielle, Ashley, and Alex.
The videos, recorded by the defendant during video chat sessions on Omegle, included text and video conversations between Fowler and various teenagers younger than 16 years old playing “The Game.”
The forensic examination further revealed that Fowler had downloaded and saved 32 images of naked young girls with their genitals exposed to the camera.
District Attorney Brown said that prosecutors determined that Fowler had made arrangements to go to Oklahoma to visit the teen just days after his arrest.
In a statement read in court during the defendant’s sentencing, the child’s mother wrote that while the defendant, “ … may not have physically touched my daughter … you have taken her innocence away. You are deserving of the punishment to the fullest.”
Featured Events
