The musician was sentenced on May 3 to 10 years in federal prison for enticing several underage girls, some as young as 14 years old, to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves.
Austin of Bloomingdale, Illinois, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of receiving child pornography.
Austin is a musician with a significant following on social media, including Facebook and YouTube. His online music videos have been viewed millions of times.
Austin admitted in a plea agreement that in 2016 and 2017 he chatted with six underage girls on Facebook and enticed them to produce pornographic videos of themselves and send them to him.
Austin told some of his victims to send him the videos as a way to “prove” they were his biggest fans. He also told some of his victims that the videos were part of a modeling opportunity, and that he could assist them in gaining followers on Instagram.
In addition to the six victims who sent videos, Austin further admitted in the plea agreement that he used Facebook on about 30 other occasions to attempt to persuade minor girls to send him sexually explicit videos and photographs.
