Grand Island Man Sentenced for Receipt and Distribution of Child Pornography

Acting United States Attorney Jan Sharp announced that Max Rookstool, 18, of Grand Island, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln by Chief United States District Judge John M. Gerrard for possession of child pornography.  Rookstool was sentenced to 10 years in prison and will serve 12 years on supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.  After serving his prison sentence, Rookstool will be required to register as a sex offender.  Rookstool was also ordered to pay $8,000 in special assessments.

In December 2019, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) was contacted by the Grand Island Police Department (GIPD) regarding an ongoing child pornography investigation indicating that a male student at Grand Island Northwest High School was using fraudulent social media accounts to solicit nude photographs of other males at the high school by pretending to be a female high school student. The investigation revealed that Rookstool was the student who created the fraudulent accounts and he would then use the photographs sent by the students to extort and seek more sexually explicit images. 

During the investigation, law enforcement determined that Rookstool had also been in contact with Brian Mohr, a teacher at his high school.  Between July 2019, and December 2019, Rookstool sent approximately 41 nude images constituting child pornography as defined by federal law to Mohr through a phone app.

Acting U.S. Attorney Sharp noted that the scheme employed by Rookstool is common in sextortion cases.  He added, “Here, students thought they were sending sexually explicit photos to who they believed to be an interested girl only to be extorted into sending more explicit images.”

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Grand Island Police Department.