Former Austin man guilty in child porn case/ David Andrew Diehl, taped encounters with young girls UPDATE: Sentenced To 50 Years In Federal Prison

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David Andrew Diehl filmed girls at home, nudist camp.

By Steven Kreytak

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Published: 7:52 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011

A software engineer who in 1999 and 2000 filmed himself sexually molesting young girls at a Bastrop County nudist camp and at his house in North Austin was found guilty Tuesday of 10 counts of exploitation of a child.

David Andrew Diehl, 49, who moved from the Austin area in 2002 and had been living in Florida when he was arrested last year, faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel will sentence Diehl on April 11.

As deputy U.S. marshals led Diehl from court in handcuffs, a man told him, "Rot in hell, David."

Diehl called the man by name and said, "I'll see you around."

Officials later said the man's daughter accuses Diehl of sexually molesting her. Diehl has not been charged in that case.

Diehl admitted in documents unsealed at the start of his trial Monday that he made 13 child pornography videos with three girls at his former house on Hazelhurst Drive and at the Star Ranch nudist colony in McDade. The videos featured Diehl, whose face was not shown, molesting girls ages 11, 8 and 3, according to federal prosecutors.

The videos were widely circulated on the Internet and known as the "tent series" and the "cbaby series," FBI Special Agent Sean Mullen, the lead investigator, testified.

Although he admitted making the videos, Diehl did not plead guilty. His lawyer at the close of a one-day bench trial Monday said that prosecutors could not prove the videos were transported in interstate or foreign commerce, which makes what Diehl did a federal crime.

In announcing his guilty verdicts Tuesday, Yeakel disagreed, saying evidence that the videos turned up in other states and countries during child pornography investigations was enough to satisfy the interstate commerce element.

Diehl moved regularly because of the contract work he performed with computers, his ex-wife, Kerry Jenkins, testified Monday. She said she did not know that he created child pornography, but a friend of Diehl's from the Tampa area, Kenneth Courtney, testified that Diehl bragged about creating the "tent series."

Courtney, who is serving a 15-year prison term for child pornography possession, said that Diehl would use his child pornography to barter over the Internet for other child porn. Courtney said Diehl had small, spy-like video cameras embedded in cleaning supplies, including a bottle of Ajax, and tried to get Courtney to use the cameras to film his daughter, something Courtney said he refused to do.

Diehl kept his collection on encrypted folders on his computer, folders that investigators have not been able to decrypt, according to testimony.

The investigation that ultimately led to Diehl was kick-started when investigators learned that a novelty $1 million bill that one of the girls in a video was holding had been manufactured for the Star Ranch.

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What a sicko, I hope he gets the maximum!

Me too. Maybe keeping him off of the streets will save a life or other ladies from being attacked and raped.

Or more innocent 3 year olds.
Pig.

October 24, 2011



The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced that in Austin, 49-year-old David Andrew Diehl was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for producing child pornography depicting sexual assaults of female children occurring while inside a camping tent as well as inside Diehl’s former Austin residence.

In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge Lee Yeakel also ordered that Diehl pay a $1,000 fine and a $1,000 special assessment. Judge Yeakel also ordered that Diehl be placed under supervised release for a period of five years after completing his prison term.

In February, Judge Yeakel convicted Diehl of ten counts of producing child pornography. Prior to trial, Diehl signed a stipulation of facts essentially admitting facts proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he sexually exploited three female children for the purpose of producing 13 child pornography videos which depict the children engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The stipulation revealed that between February 1999 and November 2000, Diehl recorded, created, and produced three video recordings while at the Star Ranch in McDade, Texas, in which Diehl used and directed an 11-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct. Diehl also produced 10 other video recordings of himself and the 8-year-old girl, and of himself and a 3-year old girl, who, at his direction, engaged in sexually explicit conduct inside his residence.

Diehl contended that he did not commit a federal crime because there was no interstate nexus as required for the federal charges. In his ruling, Judge Yeakel found sufficient evidence to establish interstate nexus beyond a reasonable doubt, noting that all of the sexually explicit videos in this case, created by the defendant, were discovered on computer hard drives by authorities conducting other criminal investigations in Mesa, Arizona; Westminster, Maryland, and other locations outside of Texas; and have been available on the Internet since 2007. Accordingly, having found interstate nexus proven, Judge Yeakel found Diehl guilty of all counts of production of child pornography.

The case was investigated by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Maine State Police. Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Devlin prosecuted the matter for the government.


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