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Convicted child sex offender 'catfished' children by posing as teenage girl online
Summary
A 48‑year‑old former Romanian soldier, Constantin Maxim, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Dublin for possessing 1,458 images of child pornography and distributing hand‑drawn images and videos of child sex abuse. He admitted to posing as a 15‑year‑old girl named Christina on Facebook and Snapchat, sending explicit messages to three children aged 10 to 12 and requesting sexualised images. When Snapchat closed his accounts, he created new ones. Gardaí found his phone contained about a thousand images of child sexual activity, 450 images of children exposing genitalia, and 12,000 adult and bestiality images of uncertain age. Maxim denied sexual attraction to children and claimed he had no real‑life intent. He had no prior convictions in Ireland but had four Romanian convictions for sexual corruption and abduction of a minor. Constantin Maxim pleaded guilty.
Who, what, where, when and why
What: Report matter: Convicted child sex offender 'catfished' children by posing as teenage girl online. Charges or matters: possessing 1,458 images of child pornography on his mobile phone on May 26 last. Procedural stage: sentence
When:
- May 26 Incident
- December 2021 Hearing Or Sentence
- July 7, 2022 Other
- 2023-03-02 Publication
Why: A convicted child sex offender who posed as a teenage girl on Snapchat and Facebook in order to send sexually explicit images to children has been jailed for five years. CNI source report
Case subjects
Defendant
Charges: possessing 1,458 images of child pornography on his mobile phone on May 26 last (Admitted)
Plea: Guilty
Outcome: Handing down a five-year sentence, Judge Martin Nolan describes Maxim's offending as "heinous". He ordered Maxim to be placed on the sex offenders' register and backdated the sentence to July 7, 2022.
Places mentioned
- Dorset Street
- Dublin city
- Dublin
- Dublin Circuit Criminal Court
- Mater Hospital
Topics
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