United States v. Frei, No. 20-5119 (6th Cir. 2021)
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Frei, age 48, used Facebook to contact teenage girls until the Metro Nashville Police Department became aware of his activities. Convicted of eight counts of child-exploitation-related crimes, including four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor under 18 U.S.C. 2251, Frei was sentenced to 318 months' imprisonment and lifetime supervised release.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to a jury instruction regarding 18 U.S.C. 2251 and that the sentence was substantively unreasonable. Pattern Jury Instruction 16.01 explains that the jury must find: That the defendant employed, used, persuaded, induced, enticed, or coerced] a minor, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of that conduct; 16.01(2)(C) defines the phrase “for the purpose of” as meaning that the defendant acted with the intent to create visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct, and that the defendant knew the character and content of the visual depictions. Frei proposed adding: The defendant must have engaged in sexually explicit conduct with the specific intent to produce a visual depiction. It is not enough for the government to simply prove that the defendant purposely produced the visual depiction. The Pattern Jury Instruction allowed Frei to argue that he did not have sex with his victim for the sole purpose of creating the visual depictions. Section 2251(a) does not have a sole-purpose provision.
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