Ann Arbor, Michigan Man Sentenced to 150 Months’ Imprisonment for Coercion and Enticement of Minor

DAYTON—David Jeremy Zobel, 33, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was sentenced in United States District Court to 150 months’ imprisonment for coercion of a minor. He was also ordered to be under court supervision for the rest of his life.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Keith L. Bennett, Special Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Andrew G. Arena, SAC, of the Detroit Division of the FBI; and Xenia Police Chief Randy Person, announced the sentence handed down yesterday by U.S. District Judge Walter Rice.

Zobel pleaded guilty on January 8, 2010 to one count of coercion of a minor. According to court documents, Zobel drove two minor females from Xenia to Toledo and engaged in sexual activity with both of them in June 2009.

Zobel began a series of sexually explicit online chats with numerous minor females from around the country, including a 13-year-old from Xenia, in approximately December 2008. Over the next six months, Zobel used online chats and text messaging to persuade her to participate in sexual activities.

On June 2, 2009, Zobel exchanged a series of text messages from Michigan with the girl asking if she and one of her friends, who was 12, would “do ANYTHING [he] want[ed]?” if he helped them runaway from Ohio. Zobel drove to Xenia, picked up the two minor girls and drove them to a parking garage in Toledo. He had each girl perform oral sex on him, took photographs of the girls posing either in their bras or with their bare breasts exposed. Mr. Zobel then left the girls in the parking garage, giving them each $20.

FBI agents arrested Zobel in Ann Arbor on June 12, 2009. He has been in custody since his arrest.

Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by FBI agents and Xenia police officers, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Tabacchi, who prosecuted the case.