Coenraad Cromhoudt, 48, of Cayuga, Indiana, was sentenced to 151 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to distribution and receipt of child sexual abuse material.
According to court documents, on July 24, 2021, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents were conducting undercover chat operations on the social media application Kik, in a chatroom known to be used by adult men looking for underage girls to exchange child sexual abuse material. An adult male later identified as Cromhoudt initiated a short conversation with a special agent posing as a 13-year-old girl living in Arizona.
On August 1, 2021, Cromhoudt sent another message inquiring about age and other information. Knowing that the “girl” was thirteen, the chat quickly turned sexual in nature. During this chat, Cromhoudt sent the “girl” naked pictures of himself, videos of pre-pubescent girls being sexually abused by adult men, and adult pornography. Cromhoudt said some of the videos depicted him abusing the children. In court, Cromhoudt admitted he sent the sexually explicit videos to the “girl,” in part, to convince “her” that he had had previously had sex with children and they enjoyed it.
Over the next two months, Cromhoudt routinely sent sexually explicit messages, videos, and photos during chats with the “girl.” Cromhoudt even tried planning to meet in Arizona to have sex with the “13-year-old girl.”
On October 28, 2021, agents executed a search warrant at Cromhoudt’s residence in Cayuga, Indiana. Cromhoudt was interviewed by investigators and admitted to receiving sexually explicit files using Kik and said he shared the files with others. He also acknowledged that he was the person chatting with the undercover special agent. In addition to the numerous videos Cromhoudt sent to the undercover agent in the Kik chat, Cromhoudt also possessed child sexual abuse material in a Google account, including a video of an adult male raping an infant girl.
Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, R. Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent in Charge of the HSI Chicago Field Office, and Superintendent Douglas G. Carter, Indiana State Police made the announcement.
HSI and the Indiana State Police investigated the case. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon. As part of the sentence, Judge Hanlon ordered that Cromhoudt be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for 15 years following his release from federal prison and must also register as a sex offender wherever he lives, works, or goes to school, as required by law.
U.S. Attorney Myers thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristina M. Korobov who prosecuted this case.
In fiscal year 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the Southern District of Indiana was second out of the 94 federal districts in the country for the number of child sexual exploitation cases prosecuted.
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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc
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