By Linda Taaffe
A 34-year-old Los Altos man could spend life in prison for sexually exploiting four teens he met during separate incidents over the Internet last year.
A Federal Grand Jury convicted Robert Jay Tashbook last week on 11 counts of sex-related offenses, including rape, the production of child pornography and attempted unlawful sexual conduct. He is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 27 in San Jose.
The maximum penalty for the production of child pornography is life imprisonment, including a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years, plus a fine of $250,000 on each of the counts of conviction, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam H. Braun, who prosecuted the case.
Tashbook posed as a modeling and talent agent to meet girls through Internet chat rooms and instant messaging between February and June 2001, according to court records. FBI agents alleged that Tashbook pressured the teens into taking sexually explicit photos of themselves, which police found during a search of his home along with airline ticket receipts, children’s toys, coloring books, a bag containing handcuffs and condoms and other pornographic materials.
He manipulated four girls to travel to his Los Altos home, where he attempted to coerce them into having sex with him and his friends in exchange for assistance with a modeling career. He expected the girls to have sex with him anytime he demanded and threatened to lock them in a room without food or clothing if they refused, according to court testimony.
He used trickery to get two underage girls to board a commercial flight to San Jose. Airline records show that he reserved and paid for the flights.
One of the girls traveled to California for what she believed would be a job interview, Braun said. Tashbook raped her when she arrived in San Jose and took sexually explicit photos of her afterward.
FBI agents thwarted Tashbook’s plans to allegedly turn a 16-year-old Pennsylvania girl into his personal sex slave last year while she was en route to Oakland International Airport with a one-way ticket reserved and paid for by him.
The teen’s mother called police May 4, 2001, after she found a note from her daughter saying that she had left to pursue a modeling career in California. Law officials were able to trace the teen’s flight and intercepted her during a stopover in Kansas City, according to an FBI affidavit. Tashbook allegedly told her that if she did not come to California, he would send sexually explicit photographs of her to her mother and travel to Pennsylvania to rape her and her younger sister.
Tashbook pleaded innocent to the charges last October. He has been convicted of sexual offenses involving a minor two times prior, in 1996, according to federal court records.
