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Donald Hildebrandt, 52, of Bel Air, has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for sexual exploitation of a child to produce child pornography and possession of child pornography.
According to his plea agreement, Hildebrandt admitted that between 2018 and 2020, he purchased at least three “spy” cameras, which he hid in a shared bathroom in his home to secretly record minors showering and using the facility.
Prosecutors said that hundreds of videos of minors in various states of undress were made, and Hildebrandt’s victims were between the ages of 3 and 16.
At least 10 children were recorded in videos taken in the bathroom and dozens of videos were produced that depicted children with exposed genitals, including at least five minors, four of whom were under the age of 12.
Hildebrandt strategically placed the cameras slightly above the seat of the toilet and at other locations at heights designed to capture the victims’ genitals while getting in and out of the shower, or using the toilet.
To further his scheme, and to record as many victims as possible, visitors were instructed to change clothes only in the bathroom and not in the bedrooms, investigators noted. Those images were later recovered on Hildebrandt’s computer, which was seized during a search in October 2021.
Prosecutors noted that the day before the execution of that search warrant on Oct. 20, 2021, Hildebrandt was advised that he was the subject of a child exploitation investigation, both through a witness and when he was contacted by a member of Child Protective Services.
Sometime after that, but before the execution of the search warrant, Hildebrandt admitted that he performed a factory reset of his tablet. Investigators also did not locate any “spy” cameras in the residence after he was tipped off.
Further, it was also proven that Hildebrandt sexually abused at least one minor, demanding that the victim engage in sexual acts with him.
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