'Embodiment of evil': Texas man sentenced for exploiting minors, running child sex abuse website
Robert Shouse, 37, sexually abused a child for six years, beginning when they were nine years old.
A Houston man was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually exploiting a 9-year-old and being a dark web administrator for a website that consisted of child sex abuse images, videos and forums, federal officials said.
Robert Alexander Shouse, 37, was sentenced on Thursday for producing and possessing "child sexual abuse material (CSAM)," according to a Justice Department news release. Shouse pleaded guilty in June to two counts of sexual exploitation of children, one count of attempted exploitation of children and one count of possessing child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.
“Robert Shouse is the embodiment of evil,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said in the release. “He used money and gifts to sexually abuse a nine-year-old child for six years. He used his computer skills to target hundreds of children, stealing their innocence and shattering their lives. In essence, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to satisfy his sick fantasies. Today’s sentence helps ensure that Shouse’s fantasies won’t become another child’s nightmare for decades to come.”
Paste BN contacted Shouse's attorneys on Friday but have not received a response.
How did law enforcement find out about Robert Shouse's crimes?
Shouse got on law enforcement officials' radars in 2018 when they identified him as an administrator for a CSAM website on the dark web, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. On this website, users' identities were kept secret, according to the release.
In Shouse's role, he "maintained the website which allowed users to post links to images and videos of CSAM," the Justice Department said. The links allowed a user to go to other websites, such as file-hosting ones where child sex abuse images and videos are stored and able to be downloaded, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Federal authorities seized and terminated the website's operation in 2019, the release reads.
In January 2019, authorities executed a search warrant at Shouse's home and recovered multiple electronic devices, which contained more than 117,000 images and over 1,100 videos of child sex abuse, according to the Justice Department. Over 4,000 images showed babies and toddlers being sexually abused, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Law enforcement also found images and videos of seven minor victims who Shouse knew personally, according to the release.
Man charged with sexually exploiting 9-year-old for six years
During their investigation, authorities learned Shouse sexually abused one of the victims for six years, beginning when they were nine years old, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
To earn the victim's trust, Shouse befriended the child and gave their family money and gifts, the Justice Department said. Shouse created over 925 images and 33 videos of the victim being sexually abused, and in some of the graphic photos he made the child wear a dog collar, according to the release.
Law enforcement discovered that Shouse also secretly recorded two other minors, one in a bathroom and another in a bedroom, and two more children online for naked pictures of themselves, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
“The deviant, criminal actions of monsters like Robert Shouse are unforgivable and leave permanent trauma for their child victims,” Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams of the FBI Houston field office said in the release.
“When these images and videos are posted and exchanged online, the victimization continues in perpetuity," Williams said. "Children are re-victimized as long as documentation of their sexual abuse is on the internet, available for others to access forever."