SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A California man posed as a teenage boy over Skype and enticed three Jefferson County girls into earning points with increasingly lewd behavior on camera, according to the FBI.

Dennis Whitt, 40, of Marina Calif., was charged this week with the production of child pornography by tricking the girls, ages 9, 15, and 16, into undressing and performing sex acts over Skype, according to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Stephen Vizvary.

The two older girls were in a video chat with strangers in May 2013 when they encountered someone using the name Lucas and claiming he was 16, the affidavit said. In their video chat, Lucas could see the girls, but they could not see him, the affidavit said.

All three girls began appearing on Skype with Lucas, but he did not appear -- only a skull and crossbones symbol, the affidavit said.

"'Lucas' and the three girls began to play a game whereby they would do things on camera to 'earn points,'" Vizvary wrote. "Tasks began with things like waving and blowing kisses but progressed to showing 'Lucas' their genitalia."

Lucas then started telling the girls to perform sex acts on camera and they did, the affidavit said.

The Skype activity continued until September 2013, when the 15-year-old girl's father notified state police that she and a friend had been engaged in sexual video chats with an unknown man, the affidavit said.

State police recovered the 15-year-old girl's Skype chat logs, then got a subpoena for Google to provide records that led the Skype account to Whitt, the affidavit said.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at Whitt's home on Tuesday. He admitted to FBI Special Agent Alix Skelton that he'd met the three girls online and suggested sex acts for them to perform over Skype, the affidavit said.

Whitt admitted he captured a video of the girls in sexually explicit conduct and stored it on his computer, the affidavit said.

Police recovered 48 video files and 20 images of the three girls from Whitt's computer, in a folder labeled, "My Girls," the affidavit said.

Whitt is in custody in California and is expected to be extradited to Syracuse to face the federal charges.



Contact John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 315-470-2187