A former elementary school security guard from New York has been sentenced in west Michigan to 30 years in prison for sexually grooming an 11-year-old Petoskey girl online by pretending to be her age and swapping virtual pets in a video game, federal officials announced.
Ryan Dookhan targeted the girl via Roblox, an online gaming platform, before moving their correspondence to a messaging application that deletes conversations, according to a Friday press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan.
“Dookhan coerced the victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct so that he could produce photographs and videos of her,” federal officials said in the release. “Over the course of the investigation, investigators determined that Dookhan solicited many sexually explicit photographs and videos from his eleven-year-old victim, with his criminal conduct spanning multiple weeks.”
Dookhan’s attorney, Joseph Caldarera, did not immediately return a phone call Monday.
What investigators found
According to a Dec. 31, 2024 federal indictment, Dookhan’s parents contacted Michigan State Police after the victim, referred to in the document as “MV-1, “had been engaging in sexual conversations and sending nude photographs to adult men on the Roblox and Justalk applications,” the indictment said.
During an interview at the Children Advocacy Center with the Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan, the girl told authorities “she met a guy on Roblox who acted like he was her age,” whose screen name was “Ryan,” the indictment said.
“They traded pets in-game,” the indictment said. “He traded a cat and dog for the best pets in the game, the snow dragon and fire dragon. She described using the chat feature on Roblox to communicate. This guy, who she identified as Ryan Dookhan, told MV-1 to download the Justalk application so they could talk. She played with Ryan three or four times before he directed her to download the Justalk application.”
Dookhan, falsely telling him she was a 16-year-old named Alex, according to the indictment.
“The first time she called Ryan, he said he would search for her house and take her from her parents if she didn’t show her vagina to him,” the indictment said. “Ryan threatened to ‘do bad stuff’ to her. She placed the first call, then Ryan kept calling her. She said it was a video call, but he had his camera turned off. She said it was always off.”
The girl sent pictures of her body parts “because she was scared,” the indictment said. “… Ryan expressed his pleasure in the pictures and asked her to send more. She recalled sending Ryan one picture of her buttocks, and two or three pictures of her genitals. She recalled her shorts being down for these pictures.
“She told Ryan she was 16 years old,” the indictment said. “Ryan told her he was 29 years old, which she found scary. At one point, she told Ryan she was 11 years old. She said Ryan didn’t care; he kept asking for pictures.”
After the girl reported the crime, authorities searched Dookhan’s cellphone and computer and found the incriminating evidence, federal authorities said.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Timothy VerHey said justice was served.
“Dookhan deserved this sentence,” VerHey said in a statement. “Anyone who sexually exploits children deserves a lengthy sentence. I hope this sentence shows that if someone exploits children in the Western District of Michigan, we will respond decisively and argue for the maximum sentence possible, which Dookhan received.”
Homeland Security Investigations and the Michigan State Police investigated the case, which was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide U.S. Department of Justice initiative that combats child sexual exploitation and abuse.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: NY school guard who groomed 11-year-old Petoskey girl online sentenced
Reporting by George Hunter, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By George Hunter, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
