Kaleb Christopher Merritt of Spring, Texas, pleaded guilty to engaging in an operation that exploited children, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.
The 26-year-old convicted rapist, who is known as “eTerror” and who is already serving a 33-year prison term in Virginia, is in federal custody in Los Angeles, the department said.
“Going after dangerous pedophiles is one of the top priorities of our office,” stated Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. “This sick, perverted criminal led an effort to prey on vulnerable children through the internet. The only way to keep the public safe is to lock him up in prison for as long as possible, and that’s exactly what we will fight for at sentencing.”
The Justice Department said that the group aimed to “create an army of sadist followers” and “espoused neo-Nazism, nihilism and pedophilia as its core principles, among others, and exposed children to material depicting and promoting these principles.” That included “repeated uses of Nazi symbols and language and the distribution of bondage, discipline, sadist, and masochistic and gore child sexual-abuse material,” it said.
Merritt is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Jan. 7, 2027. He faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in federal prison and up to life.
