Arlington Aquatic Club's former president pleads guilty to sexually exploiting kids online

ARLINGTON, Va. - The former board president of the Arlington Aquatic Club pleaded guilty Tuesday to a disturbing child exploitation conspiracy. 

Mark Black, a 50-year-old resident of Arlington, was revealed to be a member of two online groups dedicated to exploiting children between January 2018 and October 2021.

According to court documents, the sinister objective of these groups was to locate prepubescent girls online and coerce them into livestreaming sexually explicit conduct. 

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia discovered that the perpetrators, including Black, would clandestinely record these acts and share the videos among themselves.

One of the most egregious incidents occurred in July 2019 when Black induced a prepubescent minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct on a livestreaming application while covertly screen-recording the disturbing activity. 

Mark Black, 50, of Arlington, Virginia Photo via Alexandria Sheriff's Office

During the same month, Black and a co-conspirator groomed another prepubescent minor to perform sexually explicit acts on a photo and video-sharing application. The co-conspirator surreptitiously hacked into the live video feed, recorded the acts, and forwarded them to Black.

Black, who also worked as a high-ranking attorney with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement. 

He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 30 and faces a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. 

Arlington Aquatic Club photo via City of Arlington 

The severity of the sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. Project Safe Childhood brings together federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals exploiting children via the internet.