Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ROBERT MARLIN SELLERS, 62, of Bristol, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in Hartford to 156 months of imprisonment, followed by 15 years of supervised release, for child exploitation offenses related to his attempt to engage in commercial sex with a minor.
According to court documents and statements made in court, in 2020, law enforcement received information that Sellers was sharing videos of child sex abuse on a website that is focused on incest. In November 2020, an undercover FBI employee began interacting with Sellers on the social media application Kik. In the chats, Sellers made statements that he had sexually abused children, and that he had trafficked a child to engage in commercial sex acts. He also said that he had recently traveled out of state to have sex with another 12-year-old girl. The undercover investigator told Sellers that he had a 12-year-old daughter (“Doe”). After Sellers introduced the idea that Doe could be trafficked for sex, and offered suggestions to the undercover investigator about how it could be accomplished, Sellers arranged to have sex with Doe in exchange for $200.
In January 2021, Sellers, using an encrypted instant messenger application, sent the undercover investigator a link to videos of child sex abuse that Sellers maintained on a file sharing website.
On February 4, 2021, Sellers was arrested at a hotel in Southington shortly after he provided the undercover investigator $200 to engage in sex with Doe.
Sellers has been detained since his arrest. On February 14, 2022, he pleaded guilty to one count of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor, and one count of distribution of child pornography.
U.S. Attorney Avery thanked the New Britain State’s Attorney’s Office for its cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of this case.
This matter was investigated by the FBI New Haven Child Exploitation Task Force and the Southington Police Department. The task force includes members from the Connecticut State Police and the Naugatuck, East Windsor, New London and Southington Police Departments. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Angel M. Krull through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
To report cases of child exploitation, please visit www.cybertipline.com.