Arlington Aquatic Club's former president sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually exploiting kids online

ARLINGTON, Va. - The former board president of the Arlington Aquatic Club was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for conspiring to sexually exploit numerous children. 

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.

Court documents revealed the sinister objective of these groups was to locate young 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 secretly 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. 

During the same month, Black and a co-conspirator groomed another young girl 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), pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement. The FBI and FDIC-OIG investigated the case.