Washington County man sentenced to 20 years for sexually exploiting minors

A Washington County man who had threatened to extort seven minor girls to get sexually explicit images of them was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in federal prison on child pornography charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh.

Jacob Kolonis, 29, who also had lived with relatives in Duncansville, Blair County, had pleaded guilty Feb. 9 to three counts of producing and attempting to produce material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, prosecutors said.

U.S. Judge Robert J. Colville ordered Kolonis to pay $9,000 in restitution to his minor victims and be placed on probation for 10 years once he is released from prison. Kolonis also must register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Kolonis admitted to threatening to extort seven minor girls for nude and sexually explicit images.

In three instances, Kolonis threatened the girls to create and send videos of themselves engaged in sexually explicit conduct over Snapchat, in which he would direct them. Kolonis admitted in his plea hearing he did that for his own sexual gratification.

Kolonis was an assistant basketball coach at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pa., when police executed a search warrant and seized several electronic devices in February 2020, according to court documents.

Kolonis was indicted in July 2020 on 16 counts related to child pornography dating back to 2019.

The government dropped three counts each of transferring obscene material to a minor, interstate transmission of an extortion communication and receiving or attempting to receive materials depicting the exploitation of a minor.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, the state Office of the Attorney General’s Child Predator Unit, police from Bethel Park and South Fayette, as well as the Stark County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio, conducted the investigation into Kolonis, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.