mobanmarketREDONDO BEACH, CA — A former Redondo Beach resident was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for enticing vulnerable girls online to engage in masochistic abuse for his sexual gratification, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
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Matthew Christian Locher, 32, specifically targeted girls who suffered from mental illnesses including depression, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders from November 2020 to May 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In one case, he persuaded a 12-year-old girl to try to kill her parents and travel across the country to be his sex slave, according to prosecutors.
Locher was “a parent’s worst nightmare” and an individual who committed “monstrous acts,” United States District Judge Dolly M. Gee said at Tuesday’s hearing.
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Prosecutors painted a picture of a predator adept at exploiting young girls in pain.
“[Locher’s] victims are real people – real girls who turned to the internet to seek help with their struggles with anorexia, schizophrenia, and depression, and tragically fell into [Locher’s] hands,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “[Locher] knew he was talking to kids, wanted to be talking to kids, and knew kids were, in fact, harming themselves at his urging.”
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According to the federal prosecutors, Locher groomed his victims, urging them into self-mutilation. He instructed a girl who struggled with an eating disorder to starve herself and forced her to film herself cutting her body when she didn’t follow his instructions, prosecutors contend.
In another instance, the DOJ said Locher enticed two minors into sending him videos of themselves committing self-harm, including cutting their breasts with razor blades.
A third victim, who was only 12 years old, was lured into running away from her home in Ohio to travel to California to meet Locher and engage in sexual activity with him. Locher specifically instructed the girl to kill her parents and set her home on fire before he said he would pick her up, drive her to California and make her his “slave,” prosecutors said.
According to the Department of Justice, the girl did end up setting her family’s home on fire in an unsuccessful attempt to kill her parents and began her trip to California before Locher was caught.
Shortly after authorities searched his home, Locher fled the state to Indiana in the summer of 2021. Locher was later arrested in Indianapolis in January 2022.
Gee ordered Tuesday that Locher would be required to pay $25,206 in restitution to his victims and would be placed on lifetime supervised release when he is released from prison.
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