Syracuse, NY — A Syracuse child rapist, whose case caused a political stir in 2019, will spend at least two decades in federal prison after admitting Thursday that he abused a 10-year-old girl so he could exchange explicit images with another 15-year-old girl he found on the internet.
Austin Pratt, 24, will be sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison after his plea Thursday to child exploitation and pornography charges, federal prosecutors in Syracuse announced.
In a bizarre twist, though, the “15-year-old girl” who Pratt exchanged pornography with over Instagram turned out to actually be an adult man, federal prosecutors said.
“In entering his guilty plea, Pratt admitted that he used the Instagram name ‘redneck_pratt’ to message with a person who represented themselves to be a 15-year-old girl, but who law enforcement later confirmed was an adult male from Nevada,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Southwick said.
Pratt’s case first came into the spotlight after he was arrested when images surfaced of him abusing the 10-year-old girl around Valentine’s Day in 2018.
But Pratt’s predatory sex assault case in Onondaga County Court was thrown out in 2019 by Judge Stephen Dougherty, who faulted prosecutors for doing a lackadaisical job and not prosecuting the case in a timely fashion. An appellate court ruled in 2020 that prosecutor Maureen Barry had acted properly and ethically, if not perfectly. That reinstated Pratt’s initial charges.
By that point, though, Dougherty’s initial decision had already led to two consequences: first, a challenger against District Attorney William Fitzpatrick seized upon the moment before the 2019 election to accuse the longtime DA of being out of touch (Fitzpatrick won reelection), and second, Pratt’s rape case was referred to federal prosecutors for consideration.
Until that point, authorities only had proof that Pratt had raped the 10-year-old girl and taken pictures of it.
But federal interest in the case brought in the FBI, which was able to track down the person who Pratt was exchanging the rape photos with over Instagram. (That person’s identity had been a mystery in the state case.)
The FBI talked to that unnamed man, who admitted that he posed as a 15-year-old girl and convinced Pratt to send the images of the Syracuse rape. There’s no indication that the unnamed man was charged in connection with Pratt’s case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Fletcher built the case that eventually led to Pratt’s plea Thursday, which included admissions about the “girl” who turned out to be a man.
“Pratt admitted that the ‘girl’ sent sexually explicit images to him and asked Pratt to produce and send explicit images of himself with young girls,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Syracuse said in a news release. “Pratt admitted that he then sexually abused a 10-year-old child, produced images and a video of that abuse, and sent the images and video to the person he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.”
Pratt’s plea in federal court comes with the promise that he will not face additional prison time in state court. He’s expected to be sentenced to a 20-year prison term in his state case, which will run at the same time as his federal sentence, which will be somewhere between 20 and 30 years.
Pratt will be sentenced this summer by U.S. District Judge David Hurd. He remains in custody until then. Once released from prison, Pratt will become a registered sex offender.
Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.
The Link LonkApril 23, 2021 at 04:35AM
https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2021/04/syracuse-man-admits-raping-girl-10-to-send-pics-to-another-girl-who-turned-out-to-be-a-man.html
Syracuse man admits raping girl, 10, to send pics to another ‘girl’ (who turned out to be a man) - syracuse.com
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