Portland sex offender used TikTok to entice 9-year-old girl to send explicit photos

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland man was sentenced to 24 years in prison after using TikTok and other social media applications to facilitate child sex crimes, authorities said.

Shawn Alan Smith was sentenced in a federal court on Monday after using fake social media accounts to pose as a child online for the purpose of enticing “a young child to send him sexually explicit images of herself,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release.

“According to court documents, between July 11 and September 15, 2020, Smith used multiple fake online social media personas, including several on KIK messenger and TikTok, to communicate with a nine-year-old child,” federal officials said. “While posing as a minor himself, Smith instructed the child victim to take sexually explicit photos of herself and send them to him, which she did. Smith also engaged in a video chat with the child while pretending to be the father of one of his fake online personas. At the time of the offense, Smith was a registered sex offender following prior state criminal convictions for child pornography offenses in Oregon and Maryland.”

When federal agents descended on Smith’s Portland apartment with a search warrant on March 9, 2022, he “threw his phone and computer out his bathroom window” while the agents tried to enter the front door he had barricaded.

Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of online enticement of a minor and receipt of child pornography on January 21. He was sentenced to 288 months in federal prison, a life term of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution to his victims.