After Leandro Davila III was released from state prison in early 2025 for stabbing someone during an argument, he was embraced and befriended by a Newport woman, who trusted Davila enough to let him watch her young daughter while she was at work.
Prosecutors say that Davila knowingly abused that trust by recording himself sexually abusing the 8-year-old girl and sharing the videos with people across the country and around the world.
On June 18, U.S. District Judge David Bunning sentenced 31-year-old Davila in federal court in Covington to 34 years in prison. He pleaded guilty without an agreement from the government in February to production and distribution of child sexual abuse material, court records show.
‘Her mom trusts me,’ man says in online messages
Davila was previously sentenced in 2022 to eight years in prison for the stabbing, which prosecutors described in court filings as a “preemptive, angry attack” that caused the victim to undergo surgery and suffer complications resulting in hospitalization. He was released after serving roughly three years.
While on parole and after gaining the family’s trust, federal prosecutors said, Davila became someone a single mother trusted to look after her children while she worked third shift.
During the times Davila watched the children overnight, prosecutors say, he filmed himself sexually abusing the woman’s 8-year-old daughter while the girl slept. He then distributed files involving the girl to users on the Kik messaging app.
Davila referred to the girl as his niece but acknowledged in messages they weren’t really related. Prosecutors said he considered himself to be part of the family and repeatedly asked to check on the woman’s kids.
He sometimes checked in with the family briefly, but other times supervised the kids for extended periods, prosecutors added.
“Her mom trusts me,” he wrote in a message on the platform. Davila told another user that he’d been sexually abusing his “nieces” for about a month and shared videos of other children being sexually abused.
“This defendant abused that trust in the worst possible way,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Winslow said in court.
Wesley Williams, Davila’s attorney, said that his client didn’t create the videos of the other children. Authorities searched Davila’s Kik account and uncovered at least 50 videos of children engaging in sexual acts, including files depicting sadomasochism or other violence, court filings state.
How did authorities catch Davila?
In July 2025, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received two tips from Kik about a user sharing child sexual abuse material, a criminal complaint states. Authorities then used online records to trace the videos shared online back to Davila, who lived with his family less than a mile away from the girl’s home.
Law enforcement searched Davila’s family home and recovered his smartphone, which was associated with an email account tied to the Kik profile that shared the videos, the complaint states. They also found black shoes in his bedroom that matched shoes shown in the videos.
Prosecutors said the girl didn’t disclose the abuse when forensically interviewed because she didn’t remember it happening.
Davila was ultimately charged in September 2025.
Man who shared abuse videos worldwide says ‘I need to stay in prison’
Williams said in court that Davila has fully accepted responsibility and is genuinely remorseful for his actions. In a court filing, the attorney argued that Davila long struggled with mental health issues without seeking professional help.
Months before the stabbing, Williams noted, Davila suffered a mental health episode and was admitted to SUN Behavioral Health in Erlanger.
Davila said in court that he would accept any sentence the judge imposed.
“What I did was very, very rude and disrespectful,” he said. “I need to go to prison. I need to stay in prison.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mom trusted man to watch her kids. He shared videos of girl’s abuse
Reporting by Quinlan Bentley, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Quinlan Bentley, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
