West Allis man faces child porn charges
A 20-year-old West Allis man has been charged with multiple felony counts of possessing child pornography after authorities say he pressured out-ofstate teen girls to send him nude photos.
Nathan A. Dankert faces two counts of sexual exploitation of a child and five counts of possessing child pornography. He is accused of coercing girls he met online to send explicit photos and videos before blackmailing them and publicly posting the images.
When local and federal authorities searched his apartment last Wednesday and seized his computer, Dankert reportedly asked investigators who “cry-babied” about the photos, according to the criminal complaint.
He also said he stored everything on his computer, describing it as “Pandora’s box on countless parties,” and said police would find a “goldmine” on his iPod, court records show.
According to the criminal complaint:
The investigation began late last year in Idaho when a detective there was contacted by the father of a 13-yearold girl. The girl told police she had met Dankert on a role-playing website with an anonymous chat room inspired by Japanese anime. Dankert’s online character began touching the girl’s avatar on the website and then he asked for nude photos of her.
The girl refused, saying she was only 13, and Dankert kept pressuring her. The girl sent several photos over Facebook messenger and Dankert kept asking for more until the girl refused. Some time later, Dankert saw the girl in another chat room and accused the girl of “cheating” on him and threatened to “shatter her.”
He created a website with the explicit photos of the girl, then posted a link to her Facebook page. Authorities in Idaho searched thousands of pages of Dankert’s Facebook messages and saw his exchanges with the 13-year-old girl. The messages also turned up another potential victim, who was 15 at the time they were communicating.
Investigators tracked down the second girl last month and she said she knew Dankert through Facebook. She said he threatened to hurt himself if she did not send explicit photos of herself so she sent the images. One time, she said, he threatened to send the nude photos to the girl’s boyfriend — and then he did. Because of the threats, the girl then made explicit videos of herself and sent them to Dankert.
Dankert had come to the attention of West Allis police earlier in 2016. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip from the video chat service Skype in July that a potential image of child pornography was uploaded from an IP address in West Allis.
A West Allis detective went to the house and spoke with Dankert, who claimed people were trying to set him up and threatened to send him “bad files.” He allowed officers to search one computer, and when they could not locate the file referenced in the cyber tip, the investigation was closed.
At that time, Dankert told police no one else had access to his computer and he spent 90% of his day on the device.
Dankert made an initial court appearance Monday and his lawyer requested a competency exam, which was granted by the court.
The exam will determine if Dankert has the ability to understand the charges and aid in his defense.
A doctor’s report is due back by Feb. 27.