Benjamin Franklin Harden, a 30-year-old former Jackson resident, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction. The case involved an 11-year-old boy from West Virginia whom Harden met while playing Call of Duty in 2025.
The two exchanged phone numbers, and their contact continued through text messages, phone calls and video chats, according to wbbjtv.com. Harden asked the boy to send nude photos, and the pair also engaged in video chats in which they performed sexual acts on themselves, the outlet reported. The sentence includes five years of supervised release, according to U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant of the Western District of Tennessee.
Messages Led to Police Report
Harden told the boy to delete their communications, but the boy's mother found text messages and photos and called police, according to actionnews5.com.
The investigation traced Harden to Madison County, Tennessee, where he was living at the time. The case was then handled by FBI agents in Jackson, Action News 5 reported.
A Statewide Law-Enforcement Partnership
The Tennessee ICAC Task Force is a statewide partnership of city, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies working to combat technology-assisted child exploitation, according to the Tennessee ICAC Task Force.
Federal Agents Located Harden in Georgia
By June 2025, Harden had moved to Georgia and was working there. FBI agents located him at his workplace, where he admitted to engaging in an illegal relationship with the boy, according to WREG.com, in a report by Sarai Bennett.
WBBJ reported that Harden had previously been convicted of aggravated sexual battery in Hamilton County, Tennessee, and was required to register as a sex offender. U.S. Attorney Dunavant urged parents to monitor children's online gaming, social media and cellphone activities for signs of threats, according to WBBJ.
A National Surge in Online Enticement
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline received 1.4 million reports concerning online enticement in 2025, a 158% increase from the year before, according to NCMEC. The organization says online enticement occurs across platforms including online gaming, social media and messaging apps.
NCMEC also reported that electronic service provider submissions in 2025 contained 61.8 million images, videos and other files tied to suspected child sexual exploitation. The organization logged more than 80,000 reports concerning sextortion, including an average of 137 reports of financial sextortion a day—a 37% increase in the daily average compared with the previous year.
Federal prosecutors elsewhere have pursued similar cases built around gaming platforms used to target children. A Kansas man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for production of child pornography after victimizing a minor he met while playing an online video game, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Arkansas. In a separate case out of Virginia, a defendant pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children and receipt of child pornography and faced a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison, per the U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Virginia.
