A Sydney man who allegedly pretended to be a teenage girl, encouraging a teenage boy in the US to perform sex acts on a webcam has faced court.
Mark Anthony Warren, 48, briefly made his first appearance at Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday after being investigated by both the FBI and Australian police.
Officers from the Sex Crimes Squad's Child Exploitation Internet Unit had arrested him in Neutral Bay in Sydney's north.
Detectives allege that during December 2013 he assumed the online identity of a teenage girl and engaged a 14-year-old boy in New York in online conversation through a social networking site.
During these conversations, the man allegedly encouraged the boy to perform sexual acts into a webcam.
He then posted a recording of the boy onto a video sharing website.
The Earlwood resident then sent the 14-year-old a link to the video, before allegedly threatening to send the video to the teen's family and friends if he did not perform further acts on camera.
During this period, Warren continued to pretend he was a teenage girl.
The teenager reported the matter to his parents who called police.
The FBI tracked down his location to NSW and sent an intelligence package to the Child Exploitation Internet Unit who began an investigation with the help of the Australian Federal Police.
Dressed in black suit and white business shirt, Warren didn't say anything during his brief court appearance and he walked out of the court with a newspaper covering his face to avoid the waiting media.
He has been charged with using a carriage service for sexual activity with a child, using a carriage service to solicit child pornography, using a carriage service to transmit/publish child porn and produce, disseminate or possess child abuse material.
Warren will next face court on April 8.
