A Cartersville man, Ian Alicea Prewett, has admitted to his role in a harrowing child pornography production case, on Tuesday, confessing to sexually exploiting a child and enticing minors to create and send him sexually explicit content.
"Prewett preyed upon innocent children by enticing them to send him sexually explicit images and then victimized two minors, including during an out-of-state trip, by sexually assaulting those children,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a statement obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia website. Prewett's heinous activities spanned from 2020 through 2022 during which he uploaded illicit digital images of minors to Instagram, a platform from where he conducted much of this abhorrent exploitation without showing his face but his identity was eventually uncovered by federal agents in May 2023.
Further investigation led authorities to a trove of evidence when they searched Prewett’s home according to details from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, agents found a cell phone connected to the Instagram accounts that Prewett used in the distribution of the child pornography and coincidentally he was already facing charges in Cobb County, Georgia, for statutory rape, child molestation, and child enticement, which stemmed from a series of predatory interactions with a 14-year-old girl.
The case paints a grim picture of a predator using social media to exploit the vulnerable – Prewett instructed a minor under eight years old in the United Kingdom to send him explicit pictures and videos and performed similar actions with a minor from Mobile, Alabama, whom he then traveled to meet, photograph, and assault, "Due to the dedication of our special agents and law enforcement partners, Prewett is no longer able to victimize children within our communities," Anthony J. Patrone, Acting Special Agent in Charge of HSI Atlanta, covered Georgia and Alabama, said in praise of the investigative work.
With his guilty plea, Prewett, age 30, will face sentencing on September 3, 2024, as planned before U.S. District Judge William M. Ray, II, in Rome, Georgia, this prosecution is a part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched in February 2006 and aimed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
