An Indiana man who allegedly tricked some Alaska teenagers into recording video of sex acts and murdering another teenager in 2019 has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges.
Darin Schilmiller, 25, posed online as a rich man named “Tyler” and said he’d pay millions of dollars for sexually explicit photos and video of a minor, which they sent him, according to a charging document filed in federal court.
Schilmiller signed a plea agreement entered in court Thursday admitting to a single count of conspiring to produce child pornography, which carries a possible sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison.
In a separate case in state court, Schilmiller is also accused of convincing some of the Alaska teens, including his alleged co-conspirator Denali Brehmer, now 22, to record themselves killing Anchorage resident Cynthia Hoffman for $9 million.
The teens allegedly tied up Hoffman, 19, and fatally shot her near Thunderbird Falls north of Anchorage on June 2, 2019.
According to the federal charges, police investigating Hoffman’s death found the images of child porn on Brehmer’s phone, which led to the federal charges.
Brehmer pleaded guilty in February to Hoffman’s murder. She is scheduled to enter a plea in the federal child porn case July 19.
A change of plea hearing for the state murder charges against Schilmiller is set for August.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
