Coercing 14-Year-Old For Sex Leads To Jail Sentence For New York Man

TAMPA, FL — A 33-year-old Forrest Hills, New York, man has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to coerce a minor to engage in sex.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington sentenced Dominic Shapiro on Tuesday. The court also ordered Shapiro to register as a sex offender and forfeit a cell phone that was used in the commission of the crime.

Shapiro pleaded guilty on Nov. 18.

According to court documents, Shapiro spent approximately six weeks communicating with an undercover detective who was posing as a 14-year-old girl over various social media platforms including Kik, Snapchat and text messages. During these conversations, Shapiro engaged the fictitious child in sexual conversations, sent images and videos of himself masturbating, and ultimately drove to a park to have sex with this child.

“Predators like Dominic Shapiro use the pseudo-anonymity of the internet to lure children into a false sense of security before proposing to meet in person,” said Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kristopher Pagitt. “Thanks to the diligent efforts of our task force officers and law enforcement partners with the St. Petersburg Police Department along with support from HSI New York, the Federal Air Marshal Service and the New York Police Department, he was sentenced to a decade behind bars.”