A 40-year-old Toronto man has been sentenced to 33 years in a United States federal prison for orchestrating a massive, years-long online sextortion operation that targeted more than 145 American children. Ramanan Pathmanathan received the sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty in January to charges of producing child pornography and the coercion and enticement of a minor.
Consecutive Sentences and Supervision
The new 33-year American prison term will be served consecutively to a 12-year sentence he received in Canada in 2022 for similar offenses. This means his US imprisonment will only begin after his Canadian sentence is fully served. Upon his release, Pathmanathan will spend 10 years under supervised release and will be placed on the sex offender register. US prosecutors had originally recommended a 40-year sentence. He must also pay restitution of at least $3,000 per victim.
Details of the Sextortion Scheme
US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro stated, “This defendant spent years methodically hunting children online. He targeted more than 145 victims, some as young as six, and subjected them to horrors no child should ever experience.” Pathmanathan operated his scheme for seven years from a desktop computer inside the bedroom of a Toronto home he shared with his parents and brother. Using platforms like Instagram and Facebook, he created a fabricated online persona, pretending to be a teenage boy from New Jersey to gain the trust of vulnerable children aged between 11 and 17.
Once he established a connection, Pathmanathan “demanded the minor victims engage in sexually explicit conduct while they participated in video chats with him. He directed them to expose their genitals, and to engage in sexual acts with dogs, siblings and other relatives,” the statement detailed. To instruct his victims, “In almost all the video chats with his minor victims, Pathmanathan sent the children images of adults engaged in sexual acts to show them how to do what he was requesting.” He screen-recorded the video calls and collected numerous explicit files on his computer.
Threats and Coercion
When children attempted to break off contact, block his accounts, or refuse to cooperate, he resorted to systemic sextortion, threatening to distribute the recorded footage to their families and school friends. The international investigation began when the mother of one American victim contacted local police. Investigators managed to track the digital footprint and IP address back to Pathmanathan’s residence in Canada.
Arrest and Legal Proceedings
Law enforcement authorities raided the Toronto property on March 10, 2021. Pathmanathan was actively exploiting a victim up until the moment of his arrest, having saved an explicit video file of a 13-year-old girl at 5:09 am that very morning. Following his initial conviction and sentencing in Canada, Pathmanathan was temporarily surrendered to American authorities in December 2025 to face the separate federal trial in Columbia.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the US Justice Department said: “For years, while hiding in another country behind a fabricated online persona, he used manipulation, threats, and fear to coerce unsuspecting juveniles into producing and engaging in sexually explicit acts, robbing them of their innocence. We will hold accountable anyone who preys on our children, including those who do it from behind a computer screen to ensure that victims are protected and treated with the dignity they deserve.”
