St. Paul Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Producing Child Pornography in Cyberstalking and Child Exploitation Case

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (b)

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A St. Paul man has been sentenced to 240 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release for producing a video depicting his sexual abuse of a minor, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

According to the defendant’s guilty plea and court documents, beginning in July 2019 through February 2023, Chedor TV, 40, created multiple online personas on apps such as Discord and Snapchat to cyberstalk a minor victim. He used aliases such as “Chang Vang” and “Hailey Ly” to pose as a minor and communicate with the minor victim, sending her sexually explicit pictures. During this time, while the minor victim was unaware that TV was cyberstalking her using these online aliases, TV also secretly recorded the minor victim while she was naked in the shower at his residence. TV also recorded a sexually explicit video depicting the minor victim while she was asleep at his residence. When the minor victim tried to cease contact with TV’s online persona “Chang,” TV threatened to share publicly explicit videos and images he took of the minor victim without her knowledge, causing her substantial emotional distress.

TV was sentenced today in U.S. District Court by Judge Eric C. Tostrud. During sentencing, Judge Tostrud remarked that all of TV’s conduct towards the minor victim “is just appalling” and that the produced sexual abuse imagery “reflects depravity.” Judge Tostrud also reflected that TV’s conduct was “likely to have a grave, lifelong impact” on the minor victim and her family. TV pleaded guilty on January 10, 2024, to one count of production of child pornography and admitted to cyberstalking the minor victim in his plea.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the St. Paul Police Department and the FBI. It was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hillary A. Taylor prosecuted the case.