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Richard Nejame, age 29, of Schenectady, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of receiving and attempting to receive child pornography in Albany federal court on Thursday, April 11.
Prosecutors said Nejame messaged several underage girls on social media apps, including Snapchat, while pretending to be a teenage boy between October 2022 and May 2023.
As part of his guilty plea, he admitted that he then convinced the girls to take nude pictures and videos of themselves and send the content to him.
Once he received the illicit images, he told the girls to take more sexually explicit photos and videos and send them to him. If they refused, Nejame threatened to embarrass and expose the girls by publishing their pictures and videos on the internet.
In court Thursday, Nejame pleaded guilty to five counts of receiving and attempting to receive child pornography.
He faces between five and 20 years in federal prison when he’s sentenced on Wednesday, Aug. 14.
The case was prosecuted as part of the Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood,” a coordinated effort between local, state, and federal agencies to track down individuals who exploit children using the internet.
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