Kai Lundstroem Pedersen

In July 2010, Pedersen engaged in an online chat from his home in Denmark, via webcam, with an 11-year-old girl in Buchanan County, Missouri, identified as Jane Doe #1. Pedersen used a fake Facebook account to pose as a juvenile-aged male. He instructed the girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct that he recorded and saved as a digital video on his computer. This video, as well as screen capture images from the video, were later edited and distributed to others, including family and friends of the victim. Pedersen distributed the images and video over the Internet via file-sharing software.

Pedersen contacted Jane Doe #1 using various aliases through email and chat programs from July to September 2010 in an effort to convince her to engage again in sexually explicit conduct via video web chat. Pedersen threatened to disseminate sexually explicit images of her over the Internet if she did not comply with his demands. For example, on August 15, 2010, he used nine different aliases on Facebook to contact Jane Doe #1, relaying rape and murder fantasies, asserting that various individuals had watched her video and describing the various sexual acts that these individuals wanted to perform on her. In August 2010, Pedersen initiated contact with another minor female in rural Missouri whom he believed to be a close friend of Jane Doe #1. Pedersen contacted this victim, identified as Jane Doe #2, to try to exert pressure to have either Jane Doe #1 or Jane Doe #2 perform sexually explicit conduct for him via video web-chatting.

On August 13, 2010, Jane Doe #1s mother contacted law enforcement authorities. The mother told an officer that she learned of the contact with Pedersen after receiving Facebook messages that contained nude images of her daughter. A law enforcement officer, posing as a minor victim, communicated online with Pedersen and learned that he was traveling for vacation on August 20, 2010. When Pedersen logged into his Facebook account on August 25, 2010, investigators were able to trace his Internet protocol address to a residence in Stony Brook, New York, where he was arrested on September 3, 2010.[3]

Federal Correctional Institution, Oakdale where Pedersen is incarcerated

He pleaded guilty in the Western District of Missouri to the charges contained in a September 29, 2010, federal indictment.[4] Under the terms of the binding plea agreement, the government and Pedersen jointly recommended to the court a sentence of at least 15 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 30 years in federal prison without parole.

He pleaded guilty to extortion and production and distribution of child pornography. In his own statement to the judge, Pedersen apologized to the girl, calling his conduct "awful" and "inexcusable". Pedersen's defense lawyer, Ronna Holloman-Hughes, did not try to downplay the horror of intimidating a young girl for the purpose of creating child pornography. But she noted that had he been convicted in Denmark he likely would have only faced a six-year sentence. The judge retorted that, in his opinion, Denmark did not take this kind of crime seriously enough. Judge David Gregory Kays noted that Pedersen's case also presented an unusual opportunity to send a message to those who produce child pornography abroad and beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. On February 2, 2012, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for producing and transporting child pornography and for extortion against a minor. "You're unique, Mr. Pedersen, because we don't often get people like you," Kays said.[5]

The verdict has caused controversy in Denmark because he was convicted in an American court and with an American sentencing – and without the involvement of the Danish police. Some Danish lawyers have called the case "bizarre", while law professor Eva Smith called the case "crazy".[6] Pedersen is Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoner #76335-053. He is serving his sentence at the FCI Oakdale II, a low-security federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He is scheduled for release on March 27, 2036.[7]