A federal grand jury has indicted a Northeast Philadelphia woman for allegedly taking sexually explicit photos of her two daughters, ages 6 years and 16 months, sharing images of the older girl with a Michigan man via the Internet and offering to send the older girl to Detroit to meet the man for sex.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office identified the defendant as Christine Yoder, 32, of Philadelphia. Yoder lives in the Oxford Village housing project in Oxford Circle.
According to a grand jury indictment released on Friday, Yoder sent photographs of her 6-year-old daughter to a confidential informant who was working for the FBI and to an undercover FBI agent last May via an instant messaging application for mobile devices. The grand jury report states that Yoder used her mobile phone to take numerous sexually explicit photos of the 6-year-old as early as last March.
Yoder, who used the online names “sexygirl32” and “freakygirl82,” allegedly began corresponding with the confidential informant on May 21 via two different social networking services. The mother allegedly offered to give her 6-year-old to the informant for the purpose of sexual activity. Yoder sent a sexually explicit photo of the girl to the informant and offered to place the girl on a flight to Detroit, the grand jury reported.
During their text conversations, Yoder allegedly indicated that the move would be permanent, stating that the informant would have the girl “til u die” and that she was “very serious” about the offer. The mother told the informant what size clothing that he would have to buy for the girl, asked the informant if he had a double bed for them to sleep together and stated that she hoped the informant would eventually impregnate the girl so that Yoder would become a grandmother.
Later on May 21, the undercover FBI agent posed as the informant to correspond with Yoder. After sending another sexually explicit image of the 6-year-old, Yoder allegedly admitted that she had personally manipulated the child physically to produce the image. On May 23, Yoder allegedly gave her personal phone number to the agent and repeated that she was “very serious” about sending her daughter to Michigan, adding that, “I don’t want any contact after u take her.” Yoder also made several explicit references to the sexual activity in which the undercover agent and her daughter would engage, according to the grand jury.
Authorities reportedly arrested Yoder on May 27, after which she confessed to taking the photos of her 6-year-old and sending similar ones to several other men. The grand jury report did not detail the circumstances of any photos involving the 16-month-old daughter. Yoder is not charged with distributing those images.
Yoder is charged formally with two counts of employing a child to produce sexually explicit images of the child, as well as two counts of distributing material involving the sexual exploitation of children. The U.S. Attorney has not announced Yoder’s custody status and has not announced the date of her next court appearance. The status of her children has not been disclosed. ••
