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Canadian man sentenced for sexually extorting girls in Virginia Beach, hundreds of other children

The case started in January 2012, when the father of two Virginia Beach children said his daughters had been made to record sexually explicit acts by someone online.
Credit: cineberg - stock.adobe.com

NORFOLK, Va. — The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said a Canadian man will spend decades in prison for sexually extorting hundreds of children.

Raj Parekh said it took law enforcement some years to extradite 36-year-old Marco Viscomi, of Canada, but officers were committed to bringing him to justice.

The case started in January 2012, when the father of two Virginia Beach children said his daughters had been made to record sexually explicit acts by someone they met online.

Parekh said the girls, then 13 and 17 years old, had been threatened. Viscomi was 26 years old at the time and a medical student. 

Investigators started trying to find and arrest Viscomi, and discovered that he'd similarly threatened "hundreds of other victims." 

Homeland Security (HSI) couldn't identify all of the victims, but investigators did find the names of more than 70 children who had been affected.

A few months later, in July 2012, he was arrested in Canada. It took until December 2019 to get him extradited to Norfolk.

He was convicted of online sextortion and producing images of child sexual abuse and will spend 40 years in prison.

"After nearly a decade, this case is finally coming to a close because of the relentless work of law enforcement," wrote Raymond Villanueva, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Washington, D.C.

Parekh's release said Viscomi had committed "devastating crimes."

"As this case demonstrates, we will aggressively pursue perpetrators of this unfathomable form of abuse – no matter how long it takes – to help bring a measure of justice and healing for the victims," he wrote.

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