The founder of a non-profit group aimed at ending sexual violence against children has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for enticing a child to engage in illegal sexual activity, and child pornography, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced on Tuesday.
Joel Davis, the founder of "Youth to End Sexual Violence", admitted to "engaging in the very abhorrent behavior he had publicly pledged to fight," U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said.
Davis, 25, was charged in 2018 while a student at Columbia University’s School of General Studies.
Davis used a dating app around June 2018 to invite a 15-year-old boy to his Manhattan apartment and “engaged in sexual activity” with him, despite knowing that the boy was a minor, according to the Department of Justice. Davis filmed part of the encounter using his smartphone and sent footage to at least two other people, including an undercover FBI agent, authorities said on Tuesday.
Davis had more than 3,700 pictures and more than 330 videos of child pornography, including images of children younger than 12, authorities said.
He pleaded guilty on Jan. 16.
Strauss noted that Davis, "who also claims to be a Nobel Prize nominee for his work with his organization, engaged in sex acts with a minor, recording them, and distributing that recording to others – including an undercover FBI agent. Sex with minors is obviously never permissible, acceptable, or justifiable, and by virtue of his non-profit work, Joel Davis was acutely aware of the irreparable harm these crimes inflict on victims. Davis will now serve a lengthy time in federal prison, where he can no longer victimize minors."
In 2017, Davis wrote in an op-ed for the Columbia Daily Spectator: “When news broke that I was being considered for a Nobel Prize, I had a psychological breakdown — tormented by the recollection of my childhood sex abuse — and withdrew from Columbia. It was another year before I attended my first class. Without having established any roots, I returned to Columbia unnerved. Those of us who have experienced such trials usually have gravitated toward people like us for support, validation, and collective identity, but because the indicators of trauma are invisible, we’re often forced to cope with its psychological shadow alone. But in my conversations at [General Studies] I felt at ease.”
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