A Florida man who exchanged sexually explicit texts with a 9-year-old girl was sentenced to life in prison last week.
The Miami Herald reported that a North Carolina father found messages between his daughter and Scott Trader, 32, on the “SayHi” application on his child’s phone. The father contacted local police on May 30 and Homeland Security got involved shortly thereafter.
Authorities recovered messages where Trader repeatedly asked the girl for nude photos. The 32-year-old also sent a video of himself masturbating through the app, according to the newspaper.
“In response to Trader’s requests, the victim eventually sent at least one photo of her vagina and one photo of her pulling her shirt up, exposing her nipples,” a court document detailed.
Upon learning the girl’s age, Trader said she looks “pretty for her age” and “sexy” in her pajamas.
Trader’s SayHi profile reportedly listed his “Kik” username. Complying with a disclosure request from Homeland Security, Kik tracked the account to an address to Port St. Lucie, Florida.
This information allowed authorities to zero in on Trader’s prior criminal history, which included a 2012 arrest in for promoting a sexual performance by a child, lewd behavior, and possession of child pornography. However, those charges were dropped and he pleaded no contest and withheld adjudication to felony child neglect, according to the Herald.
Investigators executed a search warrant on June 1 and seized 10 media storage cards, three phones, an external hard drive, and a laptop–which all had child pornography and some stored explicit videos of a 2-year-old that was put in Trader’s care. One video depicted Trader instructing the child to kiss his penis.
CBS Miami reported that investigators determined that he recorded himself sexually abusing the 2-year-old and another underage girl from at least November 2014 through May 2017.
The 32-year-old also coerced dozens of minor children to send him explicit videos and pictures over social media. The station wrote that he redistributed many of these images to others online.
[Featured Image: Scott Trader/Police Handout]
