Man Charged For Allegedly Sending Masturbation Images, Videos To 10 Minors

A 32-year-old man in Washington, D.C., was arrested last week after he allegedly sent obscene materials to minors and attempted to produce child pornography, state prosecutors announced.

Glenn Matthews had been detained pending his trial on charges of attempted production of child pornography, attempted enticement, enticement of a minor and sending obscene material to minors, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Channing D. Phillips announced in a statement released Wednesday.

Matthews was arrested on July 22 after he was charged in a criminal complaint, which had been filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia and unsealed last week.

Matthews allegedly used his Instagram account, "SOUTHSIDEAREA," to send graphic images of himself and videos of himself masturbating to 10 different minors between July 2020 and November of the same year, according to the complaint.

According to prosecutors, Matthews allegedly also attempted to meet at least two of these children for sex, one of whom he suggested meeting at the Anacostia Metro Station.

Additionally, he allegedly solicited explicit images of at least one purported minor and took a screenshot of an explicit photo of another minor, which he had threatened to share with others if the purported minor did not comply with his demands.

Judge Michael Harvey detained Matthews at a hearing Monday pending his trial. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 20.

Matthews' case is being investigated by Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Washington Field Office's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which is composed of FBI agents and local, state and federal partners, the statement said.

State prosecutors from New York revealed earlier this month that a convicted sex offender from the state pleaded guilty to similar charges, which involved sending photos of an adult penis to a 12-year-old girl over social media while posing as a teenager.

Ryan Behar, 41, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn on July 6 to sending obscene materials to the young girl. He also pleaded guilty to committing the offense while required by state law to register as a sex offender.

Behar contacted the girl on Instagram in October 2020 while misrepresenting himself to be a teenage boy.

After telling Behar that she was 12, the victim sent the convicted sex offender an image of a young girl and said, "This is what I look like." Behar responded to the message by asking the victim to send him images of her body, but the girl refused.

Following the girl's refusal, Behar sent a "graphic image of adult male genitals" to the victim — which he claimed was his — and continued to press the victim to send him "full body" images.

Behar faces a statutory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison for the offense.

He was previously convicted in February 2018 in the Richmond County Supreme Court for attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor in the first degree after he sent sexually explicit materials over social media to another female minor victim.