A Denver doctor accused of videotaping naked young patients and posting child pornography on social media has pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors in Colorado said Friday.
Justin Neisler, 31, pleaded guilty on Thursday to producing child pornography and faces at least 15 years and up to 30 years in prison, the United States District Attorney’s Office for Colorado said in a statement.
“There are few worse breaches of trust than when a doctor takes advantage of a child in the exam room for his own sexual satisfaction,” said Colorado District Attorney Jason Dunn it’s a statement. “Fortunately, Dr. Neisler was caught and will never be in a position to harm the children on the pretext of helping them.”
Neisler was arrested in March after an FBI investigation that began in October 2018 when Tumblr officials reported that he was still publishing child pornography on his account, according to court documents. A plea agreement says he “re-wrote” them so others can see the images.
Federal prosecutors said the FBI found about 6,600 still images and 1,725 videos of child pornography on its electronic devices, which it obtained through the Internet.
Neisler also admitted to secretly registering medical examinations of minors while serving as a doctor, using a spy camera and an iPhone, prosecutors said. Neisler told investigators that he usually filmed children between 9 and 11 years old because they were old enough that their parents were not in the room with them for a wellness exam, court documents show.
The sentence is scheduled for May 22. He was fired by the company that owns St. Anthony North Family Medicine, where he was in the family medicine residency program. Neisler had been charged with multiple charges of production, possession and transportation of child pornography.
A guilty plea agreement says that prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other charges in exchange for the guilty plea, and that prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than 25 years.
Neisler said in the plea agreement that he never touched any of his minor patients inappropriately, but he did register some of them. He said in the document that he had been watching child pornography since he was 11 years old and that he had been worried about being arrested for 20 years.
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