The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced Thursday that Josiah Ferrebee, age 23, of Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, was sentenced on October 22, 2019, to 15 years’ imprisonment followed by five years’ supervised release by Senior U.S. District Court Judge James M. Munley, for production and attempted to production of child pornography.According to United States Attorney David J. Freed, Ferrebee previously admitted to persuading a 14-year-old female from the state of Michigan to take sexually explicit images of herself and send them to him via the internet. Ferrebee admitted that after he persuaded the minor to take and send some initial images to him, he threatened to post those images online unless she sent him more sexually explicit images of herself, which she did. Ferrebee committed the crime—what some have termed “sextortion”—in January 2016, when he was 19-years-old.
Ferrebee must also comply with the requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
The matter was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Pennsylvania State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Francis P. Sempa and Jenny P. Roberts prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."