Image: YouTube
Internet pop star Austin Jones was charged on Tuesday with two counts of production of child pornography. He allegedly coerced two 14-year-old female fans to send him sexually explicit videos.
Austin Jones is best known on YouTube for his original songs and covers of pop artists, and has amassed over 500,000 subscribers to his channel.
The Chicago Tribune reports he was arrested earlier this week after a criminal complaint was unsealed on Tuesday, alleging that he had conversations online with two underage female fans, encouraging them to send sexually explicit videos of themselves dancing. The minimum sentence for the charges is 15 years in prison for each count, if he is convicted.
In one chat online with Victim A, which occurred last month, the complaint says he asked her to dance in a sexual way, instructing her to “make it clap super loud and talk about your age the whole time”.
Victim B allegedly chatted with Jones last year, and was instructed to remove her underwear, in order to prove her worth as a fan.
In once instance, he allegedly told Vicitm B, “I know you’re trying your hardest to prove you’re my biggest fan. And I don’t want to have to find someone else.”
Both victims indicated that they wanted to stop following his instructions, according to the complaint.
These incidents follow accusations two years ago that Jones had encouraged young fans to send videos to him of themselves ‘twerking’. Jones faced so much backlash online that he released a 16-minute video on YouTube addressing the issue, apologising for asking girls to send the videos and saying that the videos hadn’t crossed any ‘sexual lines’.
Jones recently finished touring Europe, a ‘comeback’ from the damage his reputation suffered from the incident. He is currently being held in a Chicago prison and is awaiting trial.
