WASHINGTON, DC - A 40-year-old Canadian was sentenced late last month to 33 years in federal prison related to a sextortion scheme that targeted over 100 children across the United States, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro announced, according to a Justice Department press release.
Ramanan Pathmanathan of Toronto, Canada, pleaded guilty on Jan. 30, 2026 before Chief Judge James E. Boasberg to one count of production of child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement of a minor.
dir="ltr">“This defendant spent years methodically hunting children online. He targeted more than 145 victims, some as young as six, and subjected them to horrors no child should ever experience,” Pirro said. “The United States will not allow international borders to serve as a refuge for those who prey on children, and I am grateful to our Canadian partners for ensuring this predator faced justice on both sides of the border.”
Aside from the 396-month prison term, Boasberg ordered Pathmanathan to serve 10 years of supervised release and to register as a sex offender. The prison term will run consecutive to his 12-year prison sentence being served in Canada.
Court documents showed that Pathmanathan used multiple social media accounts, primarily Instagram and Facebook Messenger, to make contact with at least 145 young children. From March 2014 up until the date he was arrested on March 10, 2021, Pathmanathan posed as a teenage boy from New Jersey.
Pathmanathan coerced the victims into engaging in sexually explicit conduct while participating in video chats with him. He convinced them to expose their genitals, and to engage in sexual acts with dogs, siblings and other relatives. In virtually all of the video chats with his minor victims, he sent the children images of adults engaged in sexual acts to demonstrate what he was requesting, the DOJ wrote.
“Pathmanathan recorded his victims’ sexually explicit conduct and saved the files on his desktop computer. Some of the victims were as young as six years old,” the DOJ wrote. “When the minor victims would decline to continue to engage in sexually explicit conduct or blocked Pathmanathan’s social media accounts, he threatened to send images to the children’s friends or family.”
On Oct. 27, 2022, Pathmanathan pleaded guilty to similar offenses in Canada and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
“The Department of Justice is grateful to the Toronto Police Service and the Crown Operations Office, Ministry of Attorney General (Canada) for their invaluable assistance,” the DOJ release continued.
The case was investigated by the FBI Houston Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division secured the temporary surrender of Pathmanathan from Canada.
The DOJ wrote that the case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Shinskie for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Kaylynn Faulon of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
The case was brought forth consistent with the DOJ’s Project Safe Childhood initiative.
“In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.”
Additional information about Project Safe Childhood can be found at www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
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