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Hartford County resident Robert Marlin Sellers, age 61, of Bristol, pleaded guilty on Monday, Feb. 14 after being caught in an FBI sting operation, said Leonard C Boyle, US Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
According to court documents and statements made in court, in 2020, law enforcement officials received information that Sellers was sharing videos of child sex abuse on a website that focused on incest.
In November 2020, an undercover FBI employee began interacting with Sellers on the social media application Kik, court documents show.
In the chats, Sellers made statements that he had sexually abused children and that he had trafficked a child to engage in commercial sex acts, court document stated.
He also said that he had recently traveled out of state to have sex with another 12-year-old girl, the US Attorney's Office said.
The undercover investigator told Sellers that he had a 12-year-old daughter. After Sellers introduced the idea that she could be trafficked for sex, and offered suggestions to the undercover investigator about how it could be accomplished, Sellers arranged to have sex with the minor in exchange for $200, court documents said.
In January 2021, Sellers, using an encrypted instant messenger application, sent the undercover investigator a link to videos of child sex abuse that Sellers maintained on a file-sharing website.
On Feb. 4, 2021, Sellers was arrested at a hotel in Southington shortly after he provided the undercover investigator $200 to engage in sex with the minor, the documents said.
Sellers has been detained since his arrest.
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