Prominent Australian military adviser Dr Adam Cobb has a "predatory tendency" to troll for girls online and persuaded a British teen to fly to the US without her parents knowing, US prosecutors allege.
Cobb, 46, was arrested for child pornography offences on April 2 in Rhode Island where he was a professor and director at the esteemed US Naval War College.
The warfare expert and former adviser to the Australian government, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida, will ask a judge at a bail hearing in the US District Court in Providence on Tuesday to release him from jail.
Prosecutors say Cobb, who had the online moniker daddyMike69, has a strong motive to flee before trial and warned against his release.
"Indeed, the government continues to believe that the defendant's online conduct in seeking sexual encounters with teenage minors evidences a mindset that demonstrates that he is also a danger to the community," assistant US Attorney, Terrence Donnelly, wrote ahead of the bail hearing.
Cobb was charged with one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography.
Both charges carry minimum mandatory five-year jail sentences.
Cobb's lawyers argue both charges involve "consensual sexual activities" with his then 17-year-old girlfriend, who lived in Great Britain, and a 16-year-old American girl he had a "video Skype encounter with".
"He has advised governments in Australia, United Kingdom and the United States for over two decades," Cobb's lawyers, describing him as a high-level military adviser, wrote.
US and Australian friends, including military colleagues, wrote glowing references ahead of Cobb's bail hearing, describing him as as an "exceptional mentor and scholar".
One retired US colonel wrote how Cobb joined "my wife and I on a vacation together".
Prosecutors, however, say Cobb sought and received pornographic images from the 17-year-old British girl and without her parents' knowledge persuaded her to travel to the US, had sex with her in Florida and taped some of the encounters.
Video evidence was allegedly seized from Cobb's iPhone and he could also face production of child pornography charges which carry a mandatory minimum 15 years' jail,
Prosecutors also note under Florida law it is a felony for a person over 24 to have sex with a 17-year-old.
Prosecutors allege after Cobb persuaded a 16-year-old US girl to send him pornographic photos of herself "evidence retrieved from his iPhone demonstrates the defendant then distributed those images via text messages to an unknown recipient" and Cobb appears to "be bragging about his conquest".
"Though it is undisputed that the defendant's outward appearance - including his educational background and his former employment - is not one of dangerousness, it is what lies behind the scenes that concerns the government," Donnelly wrote.
"His trolling for teenage girls with whom he could commence a sexual relationship with on the internet reveals a predatory tendency, which his conversations with the 16-year-old corroborate."
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