Kansas man who offered money and marijuana to kids for porn pleads guilty to sex crimes

A Kansas man who offered money and marijuana to sex crime victims in exchange for child pornography videos has pleaded guilty to federal crimes and is expected to go to prison for more than a decade.

Austin Lee Ballew, 21, of Cherryvale, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court to five counts of sexually exploiting a child and three counts of sex trafficking of a minor, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a news release. A grand jury had originally indicted him on 15 charges in the case, though seven were dismissed in exchange for a plea deal.

Ballew admitted in the plea agreement that he used Facebook to talk to teenage girls in southeast and south-central Kansas towns, as well as Wichita, posing as a teenager or young man and calling himself Deandre Johnson. He then solicited the children for sex acts and child porn.

“Ballew offered victims money and marijuana to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves,” McAllister said in the news release. “He also threatened victims that he would make their videos public unless they kept cooperating with him.”

The investigation began when the parents of one of the victims went to the Independence Police Department. The crimes happened in August and September 2018, court records show.

Sentencing is scheduled for March 23. Prosecution and defense lawyers will recommend a sentence somewhere between 15 and 25 years in federal prison.

This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 3:43 PM.