LOS ANGELES – A lawyer who formerly had a legal practice in Ontario was sentenced today to 120 months in federal prison for receiving sexually explicit images and videos from a minor over Snapchat.
Sagi Schwartzberg, 39, of Fontana, who used the aliases “Jason D,” “drunkesq_064” and “xocdrunkx” on social media platforms, was sentenced by United States District Judge André Birotte Jr., who also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine and ordered him to serve a 20-year period of supervised release upon the completion of his prison term.
Schwartzberg, whose California law license was suspended on January 24, pleaded guilty in August 2021 to one count of receipt of child pornography.
From 2019 to January 2021, Schwartzberg used Snapchat to communicate with a minor victim. Between May 2020 and December 2020, Schwartzberg received several sexually explicit images and videos of the victim over Snapchat.
In November 2020, law enforcement received a tip from Kik, another instant messaging application, that one of its users had shared suspected child pornography with another Kik user or group of users from October 2020 to November 2020.
The tip indicated that a person later identified as Schwartzberg had uploaded suspected child pornography to Kik from two locations – later determined to be his residence and his law office.
Law enforcement also discovered that in February 2020 Kik had also submitted a tip that one of its users had shared suspected child pornography with another user or group of users in February 2020. One of the IP addresses associated with the child pornography was assigned to Schwartzberg’s Fontana residence and another IP address was assigned to his previous work address in Rancho Cucamonga.
During a search on February 17, Fontana Police officers seized Schwartzberg’s mobile phone, which had a hidden vault containing file folders, labeled with girls’ names, one of which contained sexually explicit images and videos of a girl who was at the time 14 and 15 years old when the images were created.
During a subsequent interview with police officers that is outlined in the affidavit, the girl said she had been solicited by Schwartzberg to send sexually explicit images via Snapchat starting 2019 and that she had received electronic gift cards in exchange.
In addition to this victim, law enforcement located four additional individuals in California, Minnesota and Iowa, who provided information that Schwartzberg paid for sexually explicit photos and videos of them via Snapchat and Kik. These victims were minors at the time Schwartzberg contacted them.
“Trading child pornography and soliciting sexually explicit photos . . . [and] videos from minors, is shameful and shocking behavior from an adult man, much less an adult man from [Schwartzberg’s] background: an attorney, a father, a husband, an educated man of profession who appears to enjoy professional and financial success as well as a wide circle of personal friends and colleagues,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The FBI investigated this matter in conjunction with Fontana Police Department, as part of Inland Regional Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. The Task Force also includes the Upland Police Department, the Rialto Police Department, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the Riverside Police Department.
Assistant United States Attorney Sonah Lee of the Riverside Branch Office prosecuted this case.