Brooklyn man groomed two girls, 13, to send him sexual videos; tried to kidnap Swedish girl, 17: feds
Nov 26, 2024
A Brooklyn man who once tried to kidnap a teenager in Sweden is accused of grooming two 13-year-old girls he met on a Reddit forum and paying them to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves.
Dewitt John, 31, has a history of violence and abuse against young women, starting with his attempt to abduct a 17-year-old in Stockholm in 2014, according to federal prosecutors.
John is accused of striking up a conversation with a 13-year-old girl who posted topless photos of herself this March on a Reddit group where teenagers ask if they’re ugly. The girl included her age in one of her posts.
He replied to the girl and offered to pay her for photos, then struck up a conversation with her on Instagram and started offering her money through Cash App to send him videos of herself.
On March 31, he asked the girl to make “something special” for him, giving her instructions on what to do before saying, “Tell daddy how much you want him to f— you,” according to a criminal complaint. He then sent her $20, the feds allege.
John pressured the young teen to send her videos, even though the girl said she was scared and told him, “I don’t really want to,” “I don’t feel comfortable with that” and “I’m only 13,” according to the complaint.
The minor connected John to one of her friends, also 13, whom he also convinced to sell him explicit videos of herself, the feds allege.
John was arrested on Nov. 19 and charged with federal child porn offenses.
It wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday how authorities learned of his alleged abuse.
John spent about a year in a Swedish prison in 2014, after he tried to abduct a 17-year-old girl he met online, according to court documents.
He met her twice in person, and — after becoming enraged when she wanted to cut off contact — in April 2014 he traveled to Stockholm with an army knife, rope and cable ties, the feds said. He then used a car tool to force himself into the teen’s house, but her father was home and forced John to leave.
Swedish authorities learned that he told the teen he had a gun under his bed in his Brooklyn home, and found evidence that he used his phone to search for information about the penalty for murder in Sweden.
He also sent a series of increasingly violent messages to a Virginia woman in 2021 and 2022, the feds said. He met the woman online when she was 18, and the communications turned violent when she didn’t reciprocate his romantic interests, the feds said.
“You all ought to know your place. You’re nothing, should all be raped to be put in your place. That’s what you need. Hope you get to experience that to show your worth. Taliban has the right idea in putting [you] where you belong. You deserve it and everything that happens to you. Worthless s—,” he wrote in one message.
“Well i aint no beta b—- lover boy no mo, nor do I associate with any other beta cucks. the only b—- here is you where things belong. Man on top women below. As how the lord intended it . . . You represent all the years I’ve had to deal with people like you,” he wrote in another message. “All this pent up resentment I hold on to. Finally someone’s going to take the consequences . . . Nuke 1 on its way. You wont personally hear from me again. You may see me but you wont hear from me again. Remember im crazy just like putin. Save the biggest nuke for last.”
He also threatened to murder the Virginia woman’s family, and told another person that he planned to visit the woman, boasting, “Well. Murder suicide it is.”
The threats led to two warrants for the defendant’s arrest in Virginia this year, the feds allege.
John was released on $100,000 bond to house arrest at his mother’s home.
His lawyer declined comment Tuesday.