A Westerville man has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus to crimes involving sextortion and exploitation of minors whom he met on social media platforms.
Christian Davidson, 27, pleaded guilty Oct. 22 to two counts of transmitting interstate communications with the intent to extort, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography, according to a news release from the U.S Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus.
The FBI began investigating Davidson after receiving information from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and other law enforcement agencies. Prosecutors allege that in 2024 and 2025, Davidson targeted minor victims in a sextortion scheme,
threatening to distribute sexually explicit images of them and to cause physical harm to their family members if they did not comply, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Authorities also said Davidson posted some of the explicit material online.
In one incident in August 2024, Davidson added a female victim on TikTok and told the minor that he had information about her drinking and doing drugs that he would expose to her parents unless she agreed to participate in a video call with Davidson. He then took explicit pictures of the victim. When she refused further demands from Davidson, he made a TikTok account using the victim's name and images.
In another case, Davidson tried to extort another victim for sexual content in 2018 and 2019, and would not stop harassing her until she sent him "leg pictures," according to the news release. The victim blocked Davidson, but he would create new accounts to further harass her, prosecutors said.
After the victim told Davidson that she reported him to the police, he said: “If you wanted me to leave you alone you would give me what I want…police can’t do sh**. IP address isn’t traceable. Hacked it dumb***. But just to let you know. You f****d up doing that…”
Davidson will be sentenced at a later date. He faces the possibility of between 25 and 40 years in prison to be determined by the court based on advisory sentencing guidelines and other factors.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Westerville man pleads guilty in sextortion of minors on social media
