A 31-year-old man from the Twin Cities has been sentenced to 260 months in federal prison after admitting he produced child pornography involving at least a few dozen minor victims over several years, some as young as 10 years old. U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank handed down the sentence Tuesday in St. Paul federal court, along with 20 years of supervised release to follow, after Trent Fair pleaded guilty in April to coercion and enticement of a minor.
Fair's case began not in Minnesota but nearly 1,200 miles away in Fairfax County, Virginia, where police arrested him on January 25, 2025, at a rental home in the 2000 block of Blue Ridge Court near Reston. As reported by FOX 5 Washington DC, the victim's father discovered Fair with his 15-year-old daughter at the property and called 911 following an altercation, which led directly to Fair's apprehension. According to Duluth Country Radio, Fair had traveled from Minnesota to Virginia specifically to engage in sexual activity with the child, per court records.
A Grooming Scheme That Started on TikTok
Court documents show Fair first contacted the girl online and groomed her between August 2024 and February 2025 for the purpose of obtaining sexually explicit material, knowing she was 15 years old, according to federal prosecutors. FOX 5 Washington DC reported that Fair initially established contact with the Virginia teen on TikTok roughly a year before his arrest, and criminal complaint records showed he requested explicit photos after learning her age. Federal prosecutors say Fair convinced the victim to send several sexually explicit videos, and he used social media to solicit similar material from several other children, per a sentencing news release.
The Fairfax County Police Department investigated the case in Virginia, while the FBI and the Minneapolis Police Department led the broader inquiry that followed. Federal investigators uncovered during the multi-agency probe that Fair had physically traveled to and sexually abused a second minor victim in addition to the Virginia teenager, a discovery made after authorities examined his digital communications and travel history, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
Investigators Say Admissions Numbered in the Dozens
FBI Minneapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson disclosed that Fair self-identified as a pedophile and admitted to victimizing dozens of children during law enforcement questioning, the Justice Department said. Federal prosecutors described Fair as a serial child sexual predator operating in Minnesota, and other children he targeted were reportedly as young as 10 years old, according to the sentencing news release. The investigation that led to Fair's conviction was ultimately the product of that multi-agency effort spanning Virginia and Minnesota law enforcement.
Fair's prosecution was coordinated under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative launched in May 2006 to pool federal, state, and local resources against technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation. The case lands amid a documented surge in similar reports: submissions of online enticement to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline jumped 77 percent nationwide between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, rising from 292,951 to 518,720 cases, according to Homeland Security Today.
What the 260-Month Sentence Actually Means
A conviction for online enticement of a minor under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) carries a statutory mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison and a maximum of life imprisonment, according to the Law Office of Matthew Galluzzo. Because federal parole was abolished under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, federal inmates must serve at least 85 percent of their imposed sentence, meaning Fair will spend more than 18 years behind bars before beginning his 20 years of supervised release, per EveryCRSReport.com.
Fair's sentencing follows a string of similar Project Safe Childhood prosecutions in Minnesota federal courts. In a 29-year Pine City sentencing in March 2024, 26-year-old Caleb Vincent McLaughlin was sentenced after posing as a teenager online to exploit more than 200 minors across Minnesota and Wisconsin, with Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz presiding over that case. Federal agents involved in Fair's case emphasized that responsibility for the crimes rests entirely with the offender rather than the victims.
