BOSTON - A Burnet County man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for advertising child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the dark web.
35-year-old Neal Grubert of Bertram pled guilty in July to one count of advertising child pornography. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2021.
Following the prison sentence, Grubert will have supervised release for five years.
The U.S. Attorney's office says in May 2020, Swedish authorities determined a Swedish citizen had been producing images and videos of himself sexually abusing his three-year-old niece and distributing them on various sites on the dark web.
An investigation uncovered that Grubert was an administrator on one of the websites.
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A forensic exam of the Swedish man's phone revealed several images and videos of CSAM and images and videos where Grubert could be seen watching the man sexually abuse his niece via webcam, as well as directing the abuse.
An undercover investigation by federal law enforcement also found images and a video uploaded and published on the site by Grubert in his role as an administrator.
The Swedish man pled guilty to charges in Sweden and was sentenced to seven years in prison.