Cobb 'Sextortionist' Sentenced to 40 years

MABLETON, GA — Benjamin Jenkins has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of producing and distributing child pornography that he coerced more than 100 young girls to create.

Jenkins, 25, of Mableton, Georgia, was sentenced to 40 years in prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. He will also be required to register as a sex offender upon release. Jenkins was charged with nine counts of producing child pornography and three counts of distributing child pornography. He was convicted of all of these charges by a federal jury on January 16, 2020.

Beginning in 2015, Jenkins allegedly used different identities to contact girls between the ages of 13 and 16 years, according to U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak. To lure the girls, he would use different aliases and profiles where he would persuade them to send a sexually suggestive photo of themselves. After a girl sent him a photo, Jenkins would threaten her into sending him more photos and videos by claiming that he would post their photos online or send them to their family and friends. Jenkins instructed the girls on what body parts to show, what poses to make, and more.

If a girl did not provide him with a photo or video quickly enough, he would start a countdown clock: the girl had a certain amount of time to provide him with an image before he started posting her other images online. Jenkins further humiliated his victims by forcing them to send him videos showing them drinking their own urine or licking toilets.

Once a girl blocked Jenkins online, he would send her explicit photos to her parents and friends with demands that the girl resume communications with him, said Pak. Jenkins also posted his victim’s nude photos and contact information online with messages for men to contact the girls directly for more photos or for sex. In total, Jenkins sextorted as many as 150 girls or more.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations with the assistance from the Highland (Illinois) Police Department.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul R. Jones and L. Skye Davis, Deputy Chief of the Violent Crime & National Security Section, prosecuted the case.

“No sentence will ever bring back the innocence that this monster stole from hundreds of girls,” said acting Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama. “These victims were trapped in a vicious cycle from which they could not escape. We will continue to go after these predators while educating our youth about the dangers of sextortion.”