Man kidnapped UT teen after child’s parent reported online interactions, feds say
A man accused of exchanging sexually explicit images with a 13-year-old from Utah and then kidnapping him after his parent went to police is heading to prison, officials said.
Tadashi Kura Kojima, 29, from Tucson, Arizona, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars after pleading guilty to transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah said in an April 15 news release.
Kojima legally changed his name from Aaron Michael Zeman, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News reached out to his attorney April 16 and was awaiting a response.
Kojima was arrested with the 13-year-old in December 2022 in Nebraska, after an Amber Alert was issued, according to a court document.
One of the teen’s parents had contacted police about a month earlier, saying an Arizona man was communicating with their child via social media, the court document said.
The man went by “Hunter Fox” online, according to the document.
The parent reported that the “communications became sexual and involved (the teen) and ‘Hunter Fox’ exchanging sexually explicit videos and images with one another,” the court document said.
The teen said they mostly talked via Twitter, now known as X, according to the court document.
Investigators tried to identify the man, and “a search warrant was served on Twitter for the contents of the account used by ‘Hunter Fox,’” the document said.
Four days after the search warrant was served, the teen’s parents reported him missing, and it was discovered he’d kept in touch with “Hunter Fox” by using a virtual reality headset to access Twitter, the court document said.
“Hunter Fox,” later determined to be Kojima, told the teen he was in Utah “and made arrangements to take (the teen) from his residence,” according to the document.
They were found in Nebraska two days later, the document said.
The 13-year-old disclosed that after Kojima picked him up, Kojima “had engaged in multiple incidents of illegal sexual contact with (the teen),” the document said.
Along with prison, Kojima was sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release, prosecutors said.
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