Worcester man pleads guilty to creating ‘sexually explicit videos’ of three underage girls
A Worcester man pleaded guilty to creating "sexually explicit videos" of three underage girls in federal court on Thursday, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's Office announced.
Antonio Merced, 28, pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a press release .
In July 2024, Merced exposed two underage girls to pornography and sex toys, the U.S. Attorney's office said. An investigation into the Worcester resident led to the discovery of "sexually explicit videos" of three underage girls that he produced in 2023 and 2024.
Merced was arrested in September 2024 and remains in state custody, the district attorney's office said. He was later charged with three counts of dissemination of obscene material to a minor, two counts of aggravated rape of a child and one count each of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, dissemination of child sexual abuse material, intimidation of a witness and enticing a child under 16 out of Worcester District Court.
Merced was indicted on the federal charges in November 2024 and is scheduled to be sentenced on those charges in November 2025, the U.S. Attorney's office said. He faces a sentence of decades in prison, up to a lifetime of supervised release and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
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