COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Logan, Ohio, woman pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court today to sexually exploiting minors and possessing child pornography.
Carrie Daniels, 41, was charged federally in April 2022, along with her significant other, Robert Gemienhardt, 37. Gemienhardt pleaded guilty to related offenses on Sept. 30 and awaits sentencing.
The two defendants groomed minor victims whom they had access too, sexually abused the victims, and created child pornography of the abuse.
According to court documents, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a tip from Kik messenger regarding Gemienhardt’s online child exploitation activities conducted at Daniels’s residence. The Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Hocking County Sheriff’s Office then began investigating the allegations.
Subsequent search warrants executed by the Hocking County Sherriff’s Office, in conjunction with the FBI, revealed that Daniels had produced child pornography of an approximately 3-year-old child and distributed the images she had produced to Gemienhardt. Those images were ultimately recovered on Gemienhardt’s phone. In addition, further evidence revealed that at times, Gemienhardt and Daniels acted together and produced child pornography through the grooming and sexual abuse of minor victims they had access to between April and June of 2020.
Daniels and her boyfriend, who was a registered sex offender in the state of Ohio, exchanged thousands of illicit text messages detailing their sexual fantasies about four separate minor victims to whom they had access. Those text messages further revealed both Gemienhardt and Daniels had plans to act out some of the detailed fantasies by sexually abusing some of the minors.
Sexually exploiting a minor is a crime punishable by 15 to 30 years in prison. Possessing child pornography carries a potential penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
