A California man has pleaded guilty after being accused of grooming underage girls to perform masochistic abuse on themselves, including encouraging one victim to try to kill her parents.
Matthew Christian Locher, 31, of Redondo Beach, California, has “pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child for purpose of producing a sexually explicit visual depiction,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Central District of California.
An attorney for Locher declined a request for comment from McClatchy News.
From November 2020 to May 2021, Locher is accused of targeting young girls with mental illness, including depression and eating disorders, and receiving explicit images from them.
Locher would groom the girls to engage in acts of self-mutilation and masochism, instructing one of the victims with an eating disorder to starve herself and harm herself if she didn’t obey his orders, feds say.
In another instance, officials say the 31-year-old persuaded a 12-year-old girl to run away from her Ohio home after killing her parents and join him in California. The girl set fire to her parents’ home in an unsuccessful attempt to kill them, according to the news release.
Under his plea agreement, Locher will be registered as a sex offender and receive psychiatric treatment. He is also barred from being in contact with anyone under the age of 18.
He was arrested in January in Indiana, where he relocated to after authorities executed a search warrant at his home. Locher, who faces between 15 to 30 years in prison, was transported back to California and will be sentenced on Jan. 17.
If you have experienced sexual assault and need someone to talk to, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for support at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the hotline’s online chatroom.
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