A Kentucky man, Robert Maxwell Werner, 46, of Walton, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison today for producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in the Philippines, following a chilling scheme that exploited dozens of vulnerable minors.
The sentencing, announced by Supervisory Official Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Paul McCaffrey for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and Assistant Director Chad Yarbrough of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, caps a case spanning continents and exposing a grim network of abuse.
Court documents reveal that from February to November 2021, while living in the Philippines, Werner paid a Filipino individual to access minors for in-person, livestreamed, and recorded sexual acts.
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For months, he funded custom CSAM, directing the individual to abuse minors and coerce them into sexual acts with each other for foreign clients like himself. Werner also arranged five in-person encounters at hotels and rental properties, where he sexually abused multiple minors, offering money, food, clothing, and necessities in exchange—preying on children in desperate poverty.
In his plea agreement, Werner admitted to abusing at least one minor between July and November 2021 to create explicit visual material, which he later transported to the U.S. Even after returning stateside, he continued soliciting CSAM from the same individual for another month, prosecutors said. The case lays bare a calculated exploitation ring that leveraged economic hardship to victimize children.
The FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit led the investigation, with key support from the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. Trial Attorney Rachel L. Rothberg of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Roth for the Eastern District of Kentucky prosecuted the case, securing Werner’s 30-year term—a sentence reflecting the gravity of his crimes.
Werner’s actions, spanning 2021, underscore a disturbing trend of offenders exploiting digital and geographic distance to evade justice.
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