United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio

07/09/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/09/2026 14:38

Blue Ash man who placed hidden cameras in minor victims’ home pleads guilty to sexual exploitation

CINCINNATI - A Blue Ash man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court today to sexual exploitation of children for hiding spy cameras in the home of minor victims.

David Mitsnefes, 32, faces a term of imprisonment of 15 to 30 years. Mitsnefes admitted to surreptitiously capturing videos of a minor in their bedroom in various states of undress without their knowledge and attempting to capture videos of another minor.

According to court documents, between 2021 and 2025, on multiple occasions, the family of the teenaged victims found hidden cameras in the minors' bedrooms. Mitsnefes used wifi to save videos of the minors to his iPhone. He also took the victims' underwear and kept them in his bedroom.

In November 2025, the family's Ring security camera caught an image of the suspect wearing a dark hoodie and pants entering the home while the family was out of town. A subsequent search of Mitsnefes's electronic devices revealed videos of the victims as well as numerous images and videos depicting child sexual abuse material obtained over the internet. He possessed more than 5,000 images and 3,000 videos of child pornography on his electronic devices.

Mistnefes was charged federally and arrested in December 2025.

Dominick S. Gerace II, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Jason Cromartie, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cincinnati Division; Blue Ash Police Chief Roger Pohlman and other members of the FBI's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force announced the guilty plea entered today before Senior U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett. Assistant United States Attorney Kyle J. Healey is representing the United States in this case.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney's Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

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United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio published this content on July 09, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on July 09, 2026 at 20:38 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]