A man has been sentenced to 107 years in prison for raping a foster child and filming her with other pedophiles.
Another case has been opened against five men who contacted the accused and also sexually assaulted the minor.
BarcelonaWhen TLM, 40, was arrested, police found more than 10,000 photographs and nearly 2,000 videos of child pornography that he had taken himself or exchanged with other pedophiles on his devices. Now, this man faces a sentence of 107 years and six months in prison, not only for producing and distributing child pornography, but also for how he obtained the thousands of images. Many of them were obtained by sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, under the guardianship of the General Directorate for the Care of Children and Adolescents (DGAIA). The defendant recorded the assaults himself and also contacted other pedophiles to rape the girl while he filmed them. Five of them were identified and are now being investigated in another case.
The attacks against this minor began in 2020. At the time, she was living in a juvenile center due to bullying at school and her mother's illness. These circumstances "caused her to have low self-esteem," according to the Prosecutor's Office's indictment, which Ser Catalunya reported and ARA was able to consult. The man contacted her through the dating website Badoo and immediately asked her for "photos and videos in her underwear, naked, and masturbating." Between May 2020 and October 2021, the man collected at least 44 naked images of the girl.
Aware of the girl's age and personal circumstances, the man proposed meeting her in person for sex. The encounters were repeated for almost a year and a half, always at the man's home, taking advantage of the moments when the girl escaped from the juvenile center. He showed her pornographic films "so the minor could watch them and loosen her inhibitions" and "forced her to have sex," according to the indictment. During these encounters, he also convinced her to allow himself to be photographed and recorded in her underwear, naked, or submitting to the sexual practices he imposed on her. All this with the aim of obtaining photos and videos to display or send on social media to other pedophiles.
A "lure" for other pedophiles
The man also used the girl "as a sexual attraction on social media" through the dating platform Lovoo and Instagram. He created a profile impersonating the minor and posted photos of her in her underwear. The goal was to be able to watch other men sexually assault him. "He indiscriminately offered group sex to online users," the prosecutor notes. If they agreed, the defendant referred them to his profile, where he arranged the meeting in his own name.
The man collected at least 20 videos of these assaults, in which he sometimes participated simultaneously. According to the public prosecutor's office, the defendant even instructed the other men to adapt the video to his liking. The men he contacted were aware of the girl's age, and the investigation has documented a case in which, despite the interlocutor declining a meeting because he knew she was a minor, the defendant insisted. Online conversations have also exposed those who said yes and raped the girl while everything was recorded. A separate case is investigating five of these men.
For all these reasons, TLM is accused of a string of crimes: harassment of a minor, indecent exposure to a minor, continuous sexual assault—aggravated by the fact that he was already a vulnerable victim—using a minor to create pornography, and distributing child pornography. For the seven documented sexual assaults he facilitated by contacting other men, he is considered a necessary accomplice to the crimes. For all these reasons, the Prosecutor's Office's request for a sentence increases it to 107 and a half years in prison.