In a disturbing case that has culminated in a severe sentence, Timothy Lennard Gebhart, a 38-year-old resident of Woodbury, has been sentenced to a lengthy 30 years in prison for running an extensive sextortion scheme that targeted minors, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The U.S. District Court judge imposed a sentence that will also be followed by a decade of supervised release after Gebhart’s incarceration.
Utilizing platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, Gebhart employed a web of deceit stretching through aliases — 66 on Snapchat alone — to mask his true identity and age, pretending at times to be a teenager to befriend minors and manipulate them into sending sexually explicit images and videos; this criminal enterprise spanned from July 2021 to September 2023, in an operation that did not shy from intimidating and shocking young victims into compliance, and he hunted sexual encounters with some of them. According to the press release, Gebhart resorted to threats of sharing the obtained illicit material with their friends, family, and classmates unless they sent more compromising content.
Furthermore, the level of malice in Gebhart’s method extended to sending the children distressing videos showing graphic and violent deaths, the intention being to instill fear and prompt acquiescence to his demands. The case, which brought to light these harrowing details, surfaced through a cooperative investigative effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Woodbury Police Department, and the Indiana State Police; Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Classen was credited for prosecuting the case…