Md. man with prior sex offender conviction, gets 31 years for child sexual exploitation

The FBI announced that Brian Shumate, 50, of Edgewood, Maryland, was sentenced to 31 years in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release for the sexual exploitation of children. Court documents stipulated that between 2013 and 2015, Shumate used online sites to find and communicate with minors as young as 13.  Shumate initiated sexually explicit communication with the female victims and sent images of his genitals to them.

The Harford County man then pressured his victims to take photographs of themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Shumate would misrepresent himself online and would initially pretend to be a teenage boy. In some instances, after corresponding with his victims for a time, Shumate would disclose his real age and threaten the victims and their families, unless the victims continued to send him sexually explicit images, according to The Baltimore Sun.

After being convicted for traveling to Pennsylvania in 2004 to have sex with a 12-year-old female who he asked to call him “daddy,” Shumate served a seven-year prison sentence.  Upon his release in 2012, he violated his parole on three separate occasions, was convicted for failing to register as a sex offender, and was subsequently arrested on May 22, 2014.

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The Bel Air Patch quoted the FBI’s account of Shumate’s sentencing and wrote that, “In June 2014, while in the Harford County Detention Center, Shumate called an acquaintance who informed him that the FBI was asking about his phone and social network accounts, including email and Facebook.  The acquaintance also told Shumate that the FBI wanted access to Shumate’s phone and tablet.  Shumate instructed the acquaintance to delete specific numbers and images from the phone (the numbers and images were all females,) and to wipe the phone of all content.”

Shumate’s case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

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~ Posted by: Richard Webster, Ace News Today   /   Connect with Richard on Facebook and Twitter