ABERDEEN, Md — An Aberdeen woman pleaded guilty to child sexual exploitation charges in federal court on Tuesday.
27-year-old Ashley Graybeal has been charged with sex trafficking a child, sexually exploiting a child, and distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
In January 2025, Graybeal started using her Kik account to contact other users on the platform.
According to the plea agreement, Graybeal offered other Kik users sexually explicit images of two minor victims, or to perform sex acts with the two children via livestream, in exchange for money, according to the plea agreement.
Graybeal later sent sexually explicit images of the two children to other Kik users. She was paid for the images via an online banking app.
The images were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on their Cybertipline in February 2025.
Police immediately recovered the two children.
Graybeal faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years for Sexual Exploitation of a Child, as well as up to lifetime supervised release and lifetime registration as a sex offender.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit justice.gov/psc [links-2.govdelivery.com]. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit justice.gov/psc [links-2.govdelivery.com] and click on the “Resources” tab on the left of the page.
