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Chugiak man indicted for child exploitation

Editors note: This story has been updated with new information and clarifies the FBI's undercover operation in 2010.

A federal grand jury has indicted a 37-year-old Chugiak man for sexually exploiting children. Court documents say the case against Jeremy Scott Daniels goes back to an undercover operation in 2010, when a law enforcement officer posed as a parent, who offered his eight-year-old daughter to Daniels for sex. The girl was fictitious, and although no arrest was made at that time, Daniels continued to stay on the FBI’s radar.

The Alaska U.S. Attorney’s office announced the indictment this week, but says Daniels was arrested in January of last year.

Court papers say he used social media to lure a girl under the age of twelve to make a video, which depicted Daniels raping the child. He’s also charged with distributing the video.

Chloe Martin, a community educator for the Alaska FBI office, says predators are increasingly using the internet to victimize children at younger ages, in ways parents might not expect.

“A lot of some of the online sexual exploitation that we are seeing nowadays are being started through online video game platforms that's evolved quickly over the years. And that's something that parents may not realize,” Martin said. “Your children are online just by playing video games. And they all have chat platforms on those video games.”

Martin says the Daniels case, and others, show how important it is for parents to stay vigilant in monitoring their children’s use of the internet, as well as learn more about its dangers.

“One of the most important pieces of advice for parents I can give is to have open and ongoing conversations about safe and appropriate online behavior,” Martin said.

FBI Advice for Parents on Internet Usage
FBI Advice for Parents on Internet Usage

Court records in the Daniels case include transcripts of messages he allegedly sent to the girl, in which he talked about his sexual fantasies and using meth to enhance sex.

At the time of Daniels arrest, the FBI recovered pornography on his cell phone. The indictment charges Daniels with possession of child pornography and one count of using coercion to produce it, as well as distribution of child porn videos through a messaging app called Kik (kick). The videos depicted children as young as five-years-old in sex acts.

The FBI’s Child Exploitation and Trafficking Task Force investigated this case. It asks anyone with further information on Daniels to contact the FBI’s Anchorage field office at (907) 276-4441.

Rhonda McBride has a long history of working in both television and radio in Alaska, going back to 1988, when she was news director at KYUK, the public radio and TV stations in Bethel, which broadcast in both the English and Yup’ik languages.