Charleston man sentenced to 10 years after online chats with officers posing as minors

Charleston man sentenced to 10 years after online chats with officers posing as minors

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — A 70-year-old man from Charleston had been sentenced after he reportedly connected with undercover officers posing as minors on Craigslist.

Robert Nazzaro, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for the attempted online coercion and enticement of a minor, according to a release from the district attorney's office.

Evidence obtained in the investigation reportedly revealed that in July and August of 2023, Nazzaro identified the two purported minors on Craigslist and began chatting with them. Those minors, who had identified themselves as a 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, were in reality undercover law enforcement officers.

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Nazzaro reportedly acknowledged each of their ages and continued to have sexually explicit conversations with them through email and text messages. Additionally the report states that he explained sexual concepts and discussed sexual preferences, asked for explicit photographs of each of the minors and discussed the potential of meeting in the future. He even went as far as to send nude photographs of himself to each minor as well as numerous links to pornography.

While engaged in the conduct, Nazzaro was registered as a sex offender which stemmed from an April 2023 state conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor and dissemination of obscene material to a minor.

United States District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks sentenced Nazzaro to 120 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by a life term of court-ordered supervision. There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, and the South Carolina Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force with assistance from the Charleston Police Department and Mount Pleasant Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dean H. Secor prosecuted the case.