COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Hocking County man was sentenced to 45 years for producing child pornography involving at least three minor children including one as young as 3 years old.
Robert Gemienhardt, 37, was charged in April 2022, along with his significant other, 41-year-old Carrie Daniels, for creating child pornography and possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio, more than 1,000 images and 350 videos depicting the abuse were found on Gemienhardt’s devices.
Court documents state the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip from the messenger app, Kik, regrading Gemienhardt's online child exploitation activities conducted at Daniels' residence.
The Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Hocking County Sheriff’s Office then began investigating the allegations.
Subsequent search warrants revealed that Gemienhardt and Daniels were acting together and produced the pornography through the grooming and sexual abuse of minor victims they had access to between April and June 2020.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio said the couple exchanged thousands of illicit text messages regarding detailing their sexual fantasies about the victims and plans to act out some of those fantasies.
Daniels also distributed images she created of the abuse to Gemienhardt.
Gemienhardt, who is a registered sex offender from a prior Franklin County conviction in July 2021, pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a minor, possessing child pornography in September 2022.
“All child exploitation crimes are serious and create lasting effects on the victims and their families. Gemienhardt’s conduct – the grooming and sexual abuse of the minor victims in this case – is particularly heinous,” U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker said. “He earned every bit of his sentence to multiple decades in federal prison.”
Daniels pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography in October 2022 and is awaiting sentencing.