Logan man gets 45 years for sexually abusing children

A Logan man was sentenced in federal court Thursday to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a three-year-old child, producing child pornography and possessing thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

Robert Gemienhardt, 37, pleaded guilty last year to child exploitation offenses in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio .

Gemienhardt was charged federally in April 2022, along with his significant other, 41-year-old Carrie Daniels, for their child exploitation offenses: two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography.

Daniels also pleaded guilty last year and awaits sentencing.

According to court documents, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a tip in December from Kik, a messaging app, regarding Gemienhardt's online child exploitation activities. The Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the Hocking County Sheriff's Office began investigating the allegations in February 2022.

Gemienhardt was previously registered as a sex offender in Ohio after he pleaded guilty in 2021 in Franklin County to sexual imposition and was sentenced to probation. The Hocking County Sheriff's Office used the sex offender registry to locate his home in Logan, about 48 miles southeast of Columbus.

Authorities discovered that four minor females, ranging in age from 5 to 17, lived there with Gemienhardt and Daniels, according to court records.

Search warrants executed by the

Hocking County Sheriff 's Office in conjunction with the FBI led to evidence that Gemienhardt and Daniels had been grooming and sexually abusing the four girls and had produced child pornography, court records indicate.

Authorities found more than 1,000 images and about 350 videos depicting child sexual abuse on Gemienhardt's cellphones and computer, according to court documents. Some of those images were made in 2020 and depicted the youngest child in their home, then 3 years old, in sexual acts with Daniels and/or Gemienhardt, court records state.

Gemienhardt and Daniels exchanged thousands of text messages describing their sexual fantasies about the minor victims and their plans to act on some of those fantasies, according to court documents. @Colebehr_report Cbehrens@dispatch.com