A man who sexually exploited a child and committed extortion pled guilty yesterday in federal court in Cedar Rapids.
Jason Marvets, age 30, from Eagle Grove, Iowa, was convicted of one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of extortion. At the plea hearing, Marvets admitted that, between 2016 and 2017, he persuaded, induced, enticed, or coerced a child to send him sexually explicit depictions of herself. In a plea agreement, he admitted that this child was 11 and 12 years old and that he threatened to distribute depictions of her in order to get more depictions of her. In the plea agreement, he also admitted he obtained sexually explicit depictions from a 15-year-old child and threatened to ruin her life when she did not communicate with him.
Sentencing before Chief United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Marvets remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Marvets faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 32 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, $5,200 in special assessments, and supervised release for 5 years to life following any imprisonment.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Wright County Sheriff’s Office, the Webster County Sheriff’s Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Michigan State Police.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources."
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 17-3034.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
