Port Charlotte high grad, sexual assault prevention activist arrested in child porn sting

Michael Braun | The News-Press

Joel Davis, 22, a 2013 Port Charlotte High School graduate and 2015 Nobel Prize nominee, was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday in Manhattan on charges of enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, and possession, receipt and distribution of child pornography.

Davis' Nobel nomination came for his work in founding the organization Youth to End Sexual Violence. He also was chairman of the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict.

“Joel Davis started an organization devoted to stopping sexual violence while allegedly engaged in the duplicitous behavior of sharing explicit images of infants engaged in sexual activity," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. "Davis also allegedly solicited an undercover officer — whom he thought to be a willing participant — to send sexually explicit videos of his 9-year-old daughter, and even to set up a sexual encounter between himself and a 2-year-old.”

According to the complaint, over the course of several weeks in June, Davis exchanged text messages with undercover law enforcement officers. During the conversations, Davis said he was sexually interested in children of all ages and sent the officers sexually explicit photographs of infants and toddlers, including photographs in which the infants and toddlers were engaged in sexual activity with adults.

Davis, a student at Columbia University, also described explicit sexual activity that he intended to engage in with the purported 9-year-old daughter of the undercover officer and with the purported 2-year-old daughter of the undercover officer’s girlfriend. He repeatedly asked the officer to take and send him naked and sexually explicit pictures and videos of the children.

He is charged with one count of enticement of a minor under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activity, which carries a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison; one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, which carries a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years in prison; one count of possession of child pornography, which carries a mandatory minimum term of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison; and one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years in prison.

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