A California man has been charged after police say he groomed and obtained child pornography from over 100 children on social media, including a child victim from McHenry County.
The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding an online account that was uploading child sexual abuse material to the internet.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Rod Grassmann said investigators in December executed a search warrant at the residence of 24-year-old Demetrius Carl Davis, a resident of Sacramento County, California.
Numerous screen recordings were discovered stored on Davis’s digital devices depicting children engaged in sexual acts.
Grassmann said that Davis is suspected of generating numerous fake social media accounts portraying himself as a female child named “Lizzy.”
He used the accounts to befriend and communicate with children on the internet in order to groom them.
After establishing a relationship with a child, Davis would direct them to produce child pornography and engage in sex acts with other children, Grassmann said.
Over 80 child victims have been positively identified across the United States, two of which reside in Illinois.
One of the victims includes a 13-year-old from Bull Valley, which is near Woodstock. The second Illinois victim is a 6-year-old from East Dubuque.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is assisting police in identifying victims that reside internationally, Grassmann said.
Davis is believed to have communicated with over 100 children between late 2020 and December 2021.
“Please check your children’s electronic devices if there is a way they could have had internet contact with people you are not familiar with,” Grassmann said.
Parents who believe their child may have engaged in illicit communications or sent illicit content to a subject named Lizzy over social media are asked to notify the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office at 916-874-3002 or by emailing ICAC@SACSheriff.com.
Davis is being held without bail on felony charges.