Released October 14, 2021 • current on Oct 14, 2021 at 8:42 am

A Dallas guy has been sentenced to over 23 decades in federal prison for committing aggressive criminal activities against homosexual users on the dating app Grindr, functioning U.S. lawyer Chad Meacham and associate attorneys General Kristen Clarke launched Thursday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office mentioned 22-year-old Daniel Jenkins is the finally of four defendants to-be sentenced in this instance.

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Relating to court documents, Jenkins admitted he conspired to a target nine Dallas place boys for violent criminal activities, including kidnapping, carjacking, and hate criminal activities, because of his belief with the victims' intimate positioning.

Jenkins was actually sentenced to a federal prison phase of 280 period for their contribution within the system.

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The U.S. attorneys's Office said beginning in December 2017, people in the conspiracy put Grindr, a social media online dating system made use of mainly by homosexual guys, to entice guys to a condo advanced in Dallas.

Whenever men appeared, the conspirators used the men at gunpoint and required them to push to regional ATMs to withdraw cash using their reports, the U.S. lawyer's workplace stated.

"This defendant singled-out sufferers considering their particular seen intimate orientation, next viciously assaulted them," mentioned Acting U.S. lawyer Chad Meacham your Northern region of Tx. "The section of fairness will not tolerate these sorts of heinous, hate-based problems. Unfortuitously, despite the most readily useful initiatives, bigots usually lurk on the internet. We encourage customers of online dating applications like Grindr to be aware."

"This defendant targeted simple victims for aggressive criminal activities mainly because he thought these were gay," stated associate Attorney standard Kristen Clarke associated with the Justice Department's civil-rights Division. "This sentence affirms that bias-motivated criminal activities work despite our very own nationwide prices and underscores the Justice section's commitment to aggressively prosecuting bias-motivated crimes, such as crimes contrary to the LGBTQI society. We will continue steadily to follow fairness for sufferers of bias-motivated crimes, wherever they happen."

In line with the U.S. attorneys's company, while pleading guilty on June 2, Jenkins admitted to joining the conspiracy to focus on homosexual people for aggressive criminal activities.

Jenkins and a coconspirator developed individual profiles on Grindr and used the pages to lure guys they seen as gay to an area to rob them, the U.S. Attorney's workplace stated.

In accordance with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Jenkins also admitted that on Dec. 11, 2017, he as well as others tempted numerous sufferers for the apartment hard, indicated a handgun at all of them, took their private residential property, and assaulted all of them, injuring at least one target.

The U.S. attorneys's workplace said Jenkins admitted that he understood people in the conspiracy used homosexual slurs and taunted the subjects, hence one or more member of the conspiracy experimented with intimately assault a target.

Jenkins in addition admitted to taking part in the carjacking of at least one prey.

Jenkins got the very last of four defendants to plead responsible in such a case.

Jenkins pleaded responsible to 1 number of conspiracy to dedicate hate criminal activities, kidnapping, and carjacking; one dislike criminal activity count; and one number helpful of a firearm during bookofsex profil as well as in regards to a criminal activity of physical violence.

In plea agreement, Jenkins confronted a maximum phrase of 26 age in jail.

His coconspirators, Michael Atkinson, Pablo Ceniceros-Deleon, and Daryl Henry, had earlier pleaded accountable. Atkinson had been sentenced to above 11 age in prison, Ceniceros-Deleon got sentenced to 22 decades in jail, and Henry had been sentenced to 2 decades in prison.