CA Man Posed As Girl, Solicited Child Porn From Illinois Victims: Cops

ILLINOIS — A Northern California man posed online as a prepubescent girl named "Lizzy" and solicited sexually explicit material from more than 80 children, including two in Illinois, police said.

Demetrius Davis was charged with lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, online records showed. He was placed in the Sacramento County Main Jail without bail and was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.

Acting on a tip from The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Officials searched Davis' home on Dec. 1 and found "numerous screen recordings" stored on his digital devices that showed children engaged in sex acts, Sgt. Rod Grassmann of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office said in a video posted to the sheriff's Facebook page.

One of the Illinois victims lives downstate somewhere along the Illinois-Missouri state line and the other lives in the greater Chicago area, police said, without providing specific locations.

Grassmann said Davis used the accounts to contact and then groom children over the internet, talking to children in sexually explicit language, and even sent children videos of child pornography.
After establishing a relationship with the children, Davis asked them to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves engaging in sex acts "with their siblings and other children known to them," Grassmann said. Most victims were between 6 and 13 years old, he said.

More than 80 child victims were identified across the country, including eleven in Indiana, nine in Texas, eight in California, eight in Florida, six in Pennsylvania, and six in New York, officials said. At least 15 other victims live in other countries.

Grassmann asked that parents of children who contacted a girl named "Lizzy" via online messaging apps come forward.

Patch Editor Daniel Hampton contributed to this report