A Maryland man has been sentenced to 168 months in federal prison for his involvement in a child exploitation case. Jason Hanif Rehman, from Rockville, Md., was given the sentence after pleading guilty to one count of coercion and enticement of a minor, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Rehman was arrested after a background investigation revealed his coercive actions towards a 15-year-old girl through social media. Court documents, as obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office, showed that Rehman pressured the victim into sending sexually explicit images over Snapchat. In addition to this, he physically traveled to have sex with her on multiple occasions. A fellow student’s notification to school officials kick-started the probe into Rehman's actions, which eventually uncovered more minors whom Rehman approached with explicit messages and images.
The case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in conjunction with the Fairfax County Police Department. Standing before U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, Rehman was sentenced not only to federal prison time but also mandated to register as a sex offender and to serve 10 years of supervised release post-incarceration.
This prosecution is a part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative that notably aims to combine federal, state, and local efforts to locate and prosecute online child exploitation offenders. Rehman's case echoes the initiative's mission to aggressively combat the increasingly pervasive issue of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
