Baltimore, Maryland – Jacob Mathias Rubinstein, age 42, of Elkton, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to distribution of child pornography.
The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron; Special Agent in Charge James R. Mancuso of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore; and Colonel Woodrow W. Jones III, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police.
According to his guilty plea, on September 4, 2020, the Maryland State Police received a Cybertip report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding a referral from a social media platform. The report involved an account user who was suspected to have possessed and distributed child pornography on the social media platform. The account user associated with the explicit images was linked to the email address “jaker1301@protonmail.com” and an IP address located at Rubinstein’s Elkton, Maryland residence.
On February 4, 2021, the NCMEC received a second tip from an instant messaging application regarding an account user registered under the email “jaker1301@protonmail.com” and an IP address linked to Rubinstein’s residence.
As a result of executed search warrants on Rubinstein’s various online accounts, investigators discovered that Rubinstein, at times, posed as a minor during his online communications with minors and distributed child pornography to other internet users.
For example, on September 20, 2020, Rubinstein used a social media account to communicate with a 10-year-old victim (Minor Victim 1). During communication with Minor Victim 1, Rubinstein posed as a minor himself and convinced Minor Victim 1 that he went to her local school. Rubinstein sent two sexually explicit videos to Minor Victim 1 that depicted two minor females engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Minor Victim 1 then recorded videos of herself in a nude state and sent the video to Rubinstein.
On January 12, 2021, Rubinstein used the same email address to distribute a video to a user on an instant messenger application that depicted a lewd display of a prepubescent female’s naked genitals.
As stated in his plea agreement, on February 16, 2021, MSP and HSI executed a search warrant at Rubinstein’s residence where one cell phone, a 64 GB SD card, and two laptops were seized. A forensic review of these devices revealed that Rubinstein possessed over 1,160 pictures and 970 videos of child pornography, including a two-hour video compilation depicting the sexual abuse of minor victims ranging from prepubescent toddlers to teenagers.
Rubinstein faces a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by up to a lifetime of supervised release, for distribution of child pornography. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for June 21, 2022 at 2:30 p.m.
United States Attorney Erek L. Barron commended the HSI and MSP for their work in the investigation. Mr. Barron thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine L. Duey and Zachary B. Stendig, who are prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the “Resources” tab on the left of the page.
For more information on the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, its priorities, and resources available to help the community, please visit www.justice.gov/usao-md/project-safe-childhood and https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/community-outreach.
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