Clearwater Man Accused Of Assaulting 12-Year-Old Girl Headed To Prison For 22 years

TAMPA, FL — A 25-year-old Clearwater man is headed to federal prison for 22 years after being convicted of filming himself sexually assaulting a child.

U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell of Tampa sentenced Sergio Lohan to prison and also ordered him to serve a 20-year term of supervised release and to register as a sex offender.

Lohan pleaded guilty on Aug. 17.

According to the court documents, Lohan and met the 12-year-old girl online through social media. Over time, Lohan began having increasingly sexually explicit conversations with the child and eventually talked her into exchanging sexually explicit photographs.

A few months after they began communicating, the FBI said Lohan drove to the child's home in North Port, picked her up in his car, sexually assaulted her and recorded the assault on his cellphone. Later, Lohan sent this video to the child through the internet.

The FBI executed a search warrant at Lohan’s home and seized his computer, recovering evidence of Lohan’s sexual abuse and exploitation of the girl as well as sexually explicit conversations with other children.