Michigan Man Sentenced to 25 Years After Pleading Guilty to Fourteen Counts of Child Exploitation

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Mark Allen Hillis, 58, of Southgate, Michigan, was sentenced to 25 years in prison to be followed by lifetime supervised release by United States District Court Judge Eduardo C. Robreno after being convicted of more than a dozen child exploitation offenses.

On November 17, 2021, one year and one day ago, the defendant pleaded guilty to all charges in a 14-count Indictment, including one count of enticing a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity, one count of traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct, nine counts of manufacturing and attempted manufacturing of child pornography, two counts of transferring obscene material to a minor, and one count of possessing child pornography. The charges arose from the defendant’s sexual exploitation of a 13-year-old child over the internet and by text message over a period of months, his travel from Michigan to Pennsylvania to meet up with her for sex, and his sexual assault of her in a local hotel room when he arrived.

Hillis (also known by his screen name “Denverpolice#666” and the name “Daddy”) met his 13-year-old minor victim in a YouTube chatroom. After obtaining the child’s phone number, Hillis sent hundreds of obscene images and hounded the minor at all times of the day and night, repeatedly requesting her to produce and send him sexually explicit images of herself via text message. After months of online and text communication, Hillis convinced the child to sneak out of her home in the middle of the night. The defendant, having traveled to Pennsylvania to meet the victim for sex, then picked her up and took her to a hotel room, where he sexually assaulted her.

“Mark Hillis not only manipulated a young child into providing him with explicit images of herself, he brazenly traveled across state lines, convinced her to leave her home, and assaulted her – every parent’s worst nightmare,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “This 25-year sentence in prison will ensure that he will remain safely behind bars, unable to prey on other children, for a long time.”

“Thanks to quick and seamless interagency cooperation, we have once again taken a dangerous predator of children off the streets,” said William S. Walker, Special Agent in Charge of HSI’s Philadelphia office. “I want to give special thanks to the Limerick Police Department for initiating this investigation and following it through to the end.  Only through cohesive partnerships between federal, state, and local law enforcement can investigations and prosecutions like this one be achieved.”

“This sexual predator is the personification of ‘stranger danger.’ He used the internet to seek out his victim by connecting with and grooming a young girl, before escalating to sexually assaulting her. It’s such an egregious case that illustrates the importance of parents talking to their children about internet safety and sharing information with strangers on the internet,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele. “The entire law enforcement community at the local, state and federal levels are committed to finding and prosecuting this kind of assault on our children, and I thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their successful resolution of this case.”

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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case was investigated by the Limerick Township Police Department, the Montgomery County Detective Bureau of the District Attorney’s Office, the Pennsylvania State Police, and Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Rotella.