'Sextortion' Scheme: Suburban Man Sentenced To 27 Years In Prison

CHICAGO — A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Park Ridge native who admitted blackmailing girls over the internet to produce videos and images of child sexual exploitation to 27 years in federal prison.

David J. Cottrell Jr., 31, who most recently lived with his mother in Niles, pleaded guilty last year and has been awaiting sentencing ever since. His sentence falls about halfway between the mandatory minimum and federal sentencing guidelines, which in this case is the most permitted by law, according to court records.

Cottrell was indicted in October 2018 on seven felony counts, including inducing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, extortion, production of child pornography, attempted production of child pornography, possession of child pornography and two counts of transportation of child pornography.

On March 11, Cottrell pleaded guilty to two counts of the indictment — sexual exploitation of a child, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years, and possession of child pornography. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

In a 37-page plea agreement, Cottrell admits to the sexual abuse of at least a half-dozen children, whom he coerced to produce and send him obscene content via the internet.

Cottrell threatened to distribute explicit images of girls as young as 12 to their families and on the internet if they refused his demands.

The New York University law school dropout acknowledged he was enticing children to produce "underage porn," according to the logs of his messages.

In his online communications with his victims using apps like Kik and Omeagle, Cottrell used the screennames “sevendollarcab,” “brightcitylights,” “b88785” and “YouShallSubmitToMe Sir.”

Describing one of Cottrell's victims in a sentencing memo earlier this month, prosecutors said that he turned her "early teenage years into a nightmare, robbing her of the opportunity to develop a healthy attribute towards herself, the opposite sex, and adults. That trauma will affect her for the rest of her life."

One of the girls, in eighth grade at the time, was in tears in the final video Cottrell pressured her to produce shortly before her parents took away her phone. Prosecutors said he responded with a series of abusive messages.

"[M]y knees buckled as I read the texts," her father said at a detention hearing, as he described the moment he learned his "daughter was being tortured and blackmailed and controlled inside her own home."

Cottrell continued to exploit children online even after he had been told police were investigating him, according to the government's memo, which described him as "extremely intelligent." Federal prosecutors called for the maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

"This case is part of a growing type of crime sometimes referred to as 'sextortion,'" Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Mulaney argued in the memo. "Because adolescent and teenager victims are reluctant to come forward, and online predators are difficult to trace, a case like this calls for a strong sentence to serve as general deterrence, as other courts have recognized."

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After Cottrell contracted the coronavirus last April, his attorney, Thomas Breen asked a judge to allow him to be released to his mother's custody.

"[Cottrell] is morbidly obese and, therefore, is at a higher risk of becoming extremely ill or experiencing severe complications caused by the COVID-19 virus," Breen said.

While acknowledging the more than 400-pound man indeed had a coronavirus comorbidity, the judge said he was receiving appropriate medical treatment in jail and denied the emergency motion for temporary post-conviction release.

Breen asked the judge to sentence Cottrell to the minimum allowed by law.

"Cottrell’s conduct was serious and the harm that he has caused is severe," the defense attorney said, "but imprisoning him beyond the 15 year mandatory minimum would not be a just punishment, but rather punishment for punishment’s sake."

According to letters from family and friends to U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman seeking leniency, Cottrell volunteered in local political campaigns with local Democratic Party operatives and worked in the offices of state senators in Wisconsin and Illinois. The Maine South High School and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate also worked in his family's accounting firm.

"Dave is still my comrade in fighting for progressive causes, trying to make the world a better place by having tough discussions with people and exposing them to new ideas," said a fellow Maine South grad who remained close to Cottrell after college. "Most importantly though, Dave is still my friend."

In his letter to the judge, Cottrell's father blamed himself for his son's conduct.

"I feel strongly that David's choice to go down the path that he did, where he caused harm to others, can be attributed to my abusiveness toward him, my overbearing nature toward him, and my holding him to standards that not even I could achieve or maintain," David J. Cottrell Sr. told Gettleman.

According to his defense attorney, the younger Cottrell confronted his father after learning that he had had an affair with one of his uncle's secretaries, even buying her a house, around the time his parents separated.

"When David gave me an ultimatum of being a better person or not having a relationship with him, I chose to continue with my abusive behavior and lost any relationship with my son. I know that he thought that threat would make me immediately change my ways and shape up, but I didn't," the elder Cottrell said. "I know that when I didn't, he was devastated that I did not think him valuable enough, important enough to me, did not love him enough to do anything to not risk losing him. I lost him. And he lost himself."