Former school aide accused of exploiting children facing 10 new charges

NEW YORK
CNY Central

[the indictment]

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The former elementary school aide accused of exploiting children is now facing additional charges after a grand jury returned a superseding indictment that adds ten new charges.

United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and FBI Resident Agent in Charge Andrew Vale say a 19-count superseding indictment returned by the grand jury replaces the indictment from March and adds ten charges. Seven of those charges are for sexual exploitation of a minor, while the other three allege additional conduct involving the distribution of child pornography. The superseding indictment alleges no new victims from the previous indictment.

In March an undercover federal investigator out of the Metropolitan Police Department – Federal Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation Task Force began communicating on the Kik app with a user later identified as Jason Kopp. A federal criminal complaint stated, in an exchange of texts Kopp shared numerous images of an infant child “which depict the lewd and lascivious exhibition of her genitals.” Other images show Kopp “engaged in acts of sexual abuse of the child.”

During the investigation, the criminal complaint stated agents became aware of Emily Oberst as the person who was supplying the images of the child. During an interview with investigators, Oberst admitted she has taken “a total of 45-50 sexually explicit images of the infant and sent them to ‘Jason’, and that all sexually explicit images she has sent to ‘Jason’ depict the same infant female child, who is currently 16 months old.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.