NKY man admits to paying for access to boys trafficked overseas, bringing images home

A Northern Kentucky man is facing a possible decades-long prison sentence after admitting to sexually abusing children while living overseas and returning to the U.S. with child sexual abuse images on his phone .

Robert Maxwell Werner, 46, of Walton, pleaded guilty in federal court in Covington last week to a single count of extraterritorial production of child sexual abuse material.

Werner was living in the Philippines in 2021 when he started paying someone with access to dozens of boys for images of child sexual abuse and arranged for meetings with the juveniles, according to his plea agreement.

Prosecutors say Werner engaged in sex acts with at least one boy and "narrated the meetings" to the trafficker, who waited in another room to provide Werner with additional minors.

He also paid for the production of sexually explicit images and videos of the trafficked minors, which remained on Werner's cellphone when he returned home, prosecutors said.

"Werner admits that he requested such visual depictions on numerous separate occasions using his cellular phone, and that these visual depictions involved multiple minor boys," the document states.

The person trafficking the boys was arrested in the Philippines in May 2022 and a forensic review of their phone led investigators to Werner, prosecutors said.

Werner's attorney declined to comment on the case when reached by The Enquirer on Wednesday.

Werner faces a minimum possible prison term of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years. He is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge David Bunning for sentencing on March 7.