An Air Force airman used TikTok and the children’s video game platform Roblox to chat up a 9-year-old Long Island girl and convince her to record sexual videos for cash, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
David Ibarra, 31, an active-duty senor airman stationed at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, met the young victim through TikTok in August of last year and pretended to be a 13-year-old Texas boy named “Dave,” the feds allege.
He asked her to communicate using Roblox, then got her phone number so they could text each other, according to a criminal complaint.
“Can we be a little dirty before we go to sleep? Pls and I’ll send money,” he wrote in one message Aug. 29, according to prosecutors.
Ibarra paid the girl $191 for sexually explicit videos, spread out over 17 separate Apple Pay payments, the feds allege.
The girl’s father found out what happened and contacted the Suffolk County Police, who referred the case to the FBI on Sept. 1.
From there, investigators got a warrant to search his iCloud account on Nov. 7, finding explicit photos of the victim, according to court filings.
After the girl stopped communicating with him, Ibarra reached out by phone to someone he thought was her older sister to ask why, not realizing the victim’s mother was the one answering the texts. He sent two selfie photos in that text exchange, according to a criminal complaint.
When federal authorities arrested Ibarra in his Anchorage home Feb. 12, he admitted what he’d done and said he thought the victim was 12, according to the complaint. He also admitted to soliciting pictures from more minor girls, including one in New Jersey, and his phone had a photo of another young girl, according to the complaint.
“As alleged, the defendant, a 31-year-old man posing as a 13-year-old boy, manipulated a vulnerable child into producing and sending him sexually explicit images and videos of herself via text message in exchange for money,” U.S. Attorney John Durham said Wednesday.
He was arraigned Wednesday in Long Island Federal Court on charges of exploitation of a child, coercion, and enticement, and ordered held without bail.
His lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.