A Dallas man found guilty of filming himself sexually abusing children and then selling the footage for profit has been sentenced to 60 years behind bars.
After getting indicted on child pornography charges in January 2021, 34-year-old Gemond Copage Miller pled guilty to two counts of producing child abuse material earlier this year.
The plea deal arranged between Miller and federal prosecutors, announced by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton, will see the defendant serve six decades in federal prison before undergoing supervision for life upon his release. U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr presided over the sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
During the hearing, the mother of one of Miller’s victims, who was six years old at the time of the first assault, read a statement.
“My sense of safety and security has been shattered,” the mother said on behalf of her daughter. “I am the first victim to come forward… Knowing that there are others shows that this is what he does. This is who he is. And he does not care that he took the innocence of children.”
Miller admitted to abusing 10 girls under the age of 12, but not all have been identified.
A tipoff to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led to Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office and the Dallas Police Department opening an investigation into Miller. His tattoos helped link him to several child sex abuse videos circulating on the internet.
Upon Miller’s arrest, a minimum of 38 videos had been identified of him abusing children. He was also found in possession of even more child sexual abuse material — approximately 722 images and 1,733 videos.
As previously covered by The Dallas Express, artificial intelligence technology is increasingly being used by predators to produce child abuse material. For instance, authorities have found “nudification” tools shared on the dark web, which have been used by criminals to generate fake yet realistic images of victims. It is unclear whether any materials in Miller’s possession were AI-generated.
Predators have turned to using such AI-generated material to to blackmail and manipulate victims into sending them graphic material or money. Adolescent males tend to be the targets, with criminals often posing as female peers to “sexploit” them.
As reported by The Dallas Express, such practices have helped drive legislative efforts in states such as Florida and Texas to limit children’s and teens’ access to social media.
Still, child predators are not just present on the internet. Last month, a Judson ISD band teacher was sentenced to 131 years in prison after being found guilty of possessing and promoting child pornography. He was arrested on these charges in August 2022.
Although DPD does not include a specific category for child sex crimes in its crime analytics dashboard, the data on violent crime victims, which includes victims of sexual assaults, shows that 916 of the 10,666 total logged this year as of May 30 were aged 16 and under.
DPD has been allocated a budget of just $654 million this fiscal year, much less than the sums directed toward law enforcement in other high-crime jurisdictions. Although DPD has strived to curb violent crime by focusing its resources on crime hotspots, it only fields around 3,000 officers — far fewer than the roughly 4,000 recommended by a City report.