BY: Walker
Published 10 hours ago
A Florida-based doctor is facing multiple charges in relation to allegations of child sexual abuse and coercion that prosecutors say led to the exploitation of approximately 10 minors, and the death of one 13-year-old girl.
Stephen Andrew Leedy, a 59-year-old palliative care doctor who lives in St. Petersburg, pushed one 13-year-old girl, who he coerced to produce sexually explicit images, to fatally hang herself in 2022, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
Authorities found the girl dead in her bathroom “hanging from the shower head” with her cellphone “propped up on the bathtub directly in front of her” on Nov. 16, 2022, prosecutors wrote in a motion to detain Leedy.
She “hanged herself” in “a manner consistent with instructions Leedy had previously provided her,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Jan. 6 news release.
A search of her phone showed conversations that were sexual in nature with a person with the online username “maximumuncle#9112,” which was linked to Leedy, according to the filing.
An investigation revealed he directed the girl and nine other minors “to produce child pornography while on video calls with him to satisfy his own sexual deviant interest in children,” the detention motion says.
Leedy was arrested Dec. 20 in northern Georgia, court records show.
He’s indicted on three counts of production of child sexual abuse material and two counts of coercing or enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, prosecutors said.
Leedy is represented by attorneys Bjorn Brunvand and Lucas Fleming, who told McClatchy News in an emailed statement Jan. 7 that Leedy “adamantly denies the charges that have been filed against him in federal court.”
“It is particularly important in moments like this when someone is being accused of very troubling allegations, that we afford him the presumption of innocence,” Brunvand and Fleming said. “We will be entering a not guilty plea at the earliest opportunity and look forward to vigorously defending Dr. Leedy in court.”
In the detention motion, prosecutors wrote they have “extremely strong” evidence against Leedy, who’s accused of hiding behind a black screen and “anonymity” while communicating with minors across the United States in video chats.
He never revealed his identity on the social media platform he used to communicate with them, according to prosecutors, who didn’t specify which platform.
“Law enforcement confirmed Leedy’s ownership over the account used to encourage minors to engage in sadistic and sexual behavior,” the filing says.
Leedy instructed the minors he sexually exploited to cut, choke and hang themselves, according to prosecutors.
He told the 13-year-old girl who was found dead in November 2022 to produce child pornography, “choke herself using a dog leash” and “engage in ‘daily hangings,’” prosecutors wrote in the detention motion.
If Leedy is convicted on all counts against him, he could face life in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Dr. Leedy’s license to practice medicine in Florida was suspended by the state Department of Health, an emergency order filed Jan. 7 shows. A formal disciplinary proceeding is expected to follow.
“Dr. Leedy’s vile, reprehensible, and sadistic conduct of directing children to engage in degrading sex acts, self-harm, and mutilation shows that Dr. Leedy lacks the good judgment and moral character necessary to be a physician,” the order signed by Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo says.
via: Miami Herald
