Hartford Man Charged with Receiving Sexually Explicit Images of Minor Girl He Communicated with on Discord

Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Robert Fuller, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, today announced that MARVYN ESCOBAR, 26, of Hartford, was arrested yesterday on a criminal complaint charging him with child exploitation offenses.

Following his arrest, Escobar appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson in Hartford and was ordered detained.

As alleged in court documents and statements made in court, an investigation by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force and Hartford Police Department revealed that Escobar used the social media platform Discord to have sexually explicit communications with a 13-year-old girl.  Escobar sent the minor victim sexually explicit images and videos, and requested that she send him sexually explicit images of herself, which she did.

It is alleged that the Discord communications between Escobar and the minor victim began on July 19, 2023.  The following day, Escobar was sentenced in state court to five years of jail, all suspended, and three years of probation, for risk of injury to children.  The charge stemmed from Escobar’s sexual assault of a minor female in 2018 and 2019.

The complaint charges Escobar with receipt of child pornography, an offense that carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years, and transfer of obscene material to a minor, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years.

U.S. Attorney Avery stressed that a complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt.  Charges are only allegations and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This matter is being investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including the Hartford Police Department.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda S. Oakes 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.