A federal indictment filed Tuesday charges Seth Ganahl, 42, of Maumelle with seven felonies, accusing him of enticing four underage girls for sexual purposes over the past six years.
Ganahl, a computer programmer who owns and operates Ganahl Consulting LLC, was arrested last month on a federal criminal complaint and was detained pending possible indictment by a federal grand jury, which met last week.
During a Jan. 16 detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge H. David Young, a Homeland Security agent testified that Ganahl preys on financially disadvantaged girls whose families he has helped, encouraging the girls to be "models" for photographs that he takes as a hobby. Agent Jeffrey Pryor said Ganahl also enticed the girls to take nude photographs of themselves, and then to pose for his photographs and eventually to engage in sexual acts with him, by telling them they were beautiful.
Ganahl also testified at the hearing, acknowledging that he made about $20,000 a month, before taxes, and that he had recently researched online the availability of flights leaving Little Rock for places such as Alaska, Mexico and Russia -- factors that made prosecutors fear that he might flee if not detained.
Pryor said that after a 12-year-old girl reported Ganahl, authorities found evidence linking him to the other girls, including a 13-year-old girl who later started cutting herself and began talking about committing suicide.
The agent said Ganahl's smartphone, which was seized, revealed messages that he had sent to several young girls, asking them to produce sexually oriented videos under his instruction in return for money. In the messages, he used the name Christian Canon, Pryor said, noting that Christian is Ganahl's middle name and that he uses a Canon camera.
The agent said Ganahl had also posted ads on Craigslist for a "housekeeper-plus," specifically requesting females between the ages of 16 and 24 who are "willing to do housework and a few other things my wife doesn't do."
The indictment, handed up Feb. 4 but not filed until Tuesday, charges Ganahl with three counts of enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, one count of transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, and three counts of enticing a minor to engage in the production of child pornography. The time frames vary with each count but altogether cover the period beginning in January 2009 and ending in June, July or August of last year.
In August, Ganahl was charged in Pulaski County Circuit Court with two counts each of second-degree sexual assault and sexual indecency with a minor.
Pryor testified last month that Ganahl is so computer-savvy that federal agents were having a hard time accessing encrypted files on his confiscated computers.
Metro on 02/11/2015