"Pathmanathan demanded the minor victims engage in sexually explicit conduct while they participated in video chats with him," the Justice Department said — a concise description of an eight‑year campaign that preyed on children as young as six.
Charges, plea, and sentence
Ramanan Pathmanathan, a 40‑year‑old Canadian, pleaded guilty on January 30, 2026, to one count of coercion and enticement of a minor and one count of child pornography production. A U.S. court sentenced him to 33 years in prison, ordered him to register as a sex offender, and imposed 10 years of supervised release after his term. The sentence in the United States comes on top of an existing 12‑year prison term he is serving in Canada following a 2022 guilty plea to similar offenses.
How the sextortion scheme operated
According to court records cited by the Justice Department, Pathmanathan conducted his campaign from at least March 2014 until his arrest on March 10, 2021. During that period he contacted at least 145 young victims across the United States while posing as a teenage boy from New Jersey. He used multiple Instagram and Facebook Messenger accounts to initiate and maintain contact and to record interactions.
The recordings, the threats, and the youngest victims
The Justice Department described a pattern of coercion: Pathmanathan directed children to expose their genitals and to perform sexual acts, including acts involving dogs, siblings, and other relatives. "In almost all the video chats with his minor victims, Pathmanathan sent the children images of adults engaged in sexual acts to show them how to do what he was requesting," the Justice Department said. He then recorded the victims' sexually explicit conduct and saved the files on his desktop computer. Some of the victims were as young as six years old. When victims declined or blocked his accounts, he threatened to send the recordings to their friends or family.
FBI advisory and immediate guidance
The FBI issued a public warning in September 2021 highlighting a sharp increase in sextortion complaints. The bureau advised those receiving sextortion threats to "stop all interaction with the criminals immediately, contact law enforcement, and file a complaint as soon as possible." That advisory sits alongside the criminal case record in which law enforcement traces sustained, multi‑platform interaction and recorded material that prosecutors say produced child sexual abuse content.
What this means for the Justice Department, parents, and platform operators
- The Justice Department and prosecutors: The federal prosecution produced a long custodial sentence and a formal record that the defendant recorded and saved files on a desktop computer, which will be part of evidentiary practice in future cases where recordings and digital artifacts are central evidence.
- Parents and families: The case underlines that, according to the Justice Department, offenders can pose as peers and use mainstream social networks to initiate contact; when children receive sexually explicit solicitations or threats, the FBI's guidance is to cease interaction immediately and report to law enforcement.
- Platform operators (Instagram, Facebook Messenger): The record in this case notes that the defendant used multiple accounts on Instagram and Facebook Messenger to contact and record victims. That fact will likely focus attention on how accounts are created, monitored, reported, and removed when used to coerce minors.
The outcome in this case is unambiguous in its record: multi‑year, cross‑border sextortion campaigns can produce both criminal convictions in multiple jurisdictions and severe sentences in the United States. The Justice Department's description of tactics — posing as a peer, providing explicit images as instruction, recording video chats, and threatening distribution to coerce compliance — is precisely the sequence law enforcement warned about in 2021. For parents, platforms, and prosecutors, the message is the same: stop contact, notify authorities, and preserve evidence so that these cases can be investigated and prosecuted.
