A man from north suburban Niles pleaded guilty for threatening to publish sexually explicit images of an underage girl.
David J. Cottrell, 30, entered a guilty plea Wednesday to one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of possession of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
He enticed the girl to send sexually explicit photos through social media apps and threatened to send them to her family unless she shared additional images and videos, prosecutors said. Cottrell told her he knew her name, where she went to school and what her parents’ jobs were.
Her parents discovered the messages in 2017 and contacted authorities, prosecutors said. Investigators also learned he tried to get four other children to send him photos under screen names including “sevendollarcab,” “brightcitylights,” “b88785,” and “YouShallSubmitToMe Sir.”
Cottrell is due in court for sentencing June 4. The exploitation charge is punishable by 15 to 30 years in prison, while the child pornography charge carries a sentence of up to 10 years.
