LAUREL, Md. — A Laurel man has been sentenced to just over 15 years in prison for the enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, specifically, production of child pornography.
According to his guilty plea, in January 2020, the Talbot County Sheriff’s Office initiated an investigation into 25-year-old Kyle Elio Ripper after finding that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old boy.
As detailed in his plea agreement, on March 10, 2020, search warrants were initiated at Ripper’s home and on his vehicle and seized several electronic devices. This is where investigators discovered that Ripper had communicated with minors via the internet and engaged in sexual relations with at least two minor victims.
A review of his phone revealed that in December 2019, he engaged in a sexually explicit conversation with one of the minors, requesting sexually explicit images of the minor.
Ripper also traveled to the victim’s home and engaged in sexual relations with the victim and documented the encounter on his phone.
Additional evidence from revealed that in January 2020, he also communicated with a 16-year-old boy and requested and received, at least one sexually explicit image of the minor.
According to information found on Ripper’s phone, he traveled to the teen's home in Baltimore to pick up him up and took him to Anne Arundel County before engaging in sexual acts.
A forensic review of Ripper’s hard drives and laptop revealed thousands of images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, including the sexual abuse of a toddler and infant.
