Man accused for communicating with minor, receiving nude photos

San Rafael, California – A San Rafael man has been accused in federal court of receiving child pornography from a then-12-year-old girl he met through a video game chat room.

If convicted of the single offense, Robert Haeuser, 32, faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Haeuser was ordered released from jail on $25,000 unsecured bail after his initial court appearance on Wednesday, according to court documents.

The FBI discovered text messages between Haeuser and a girl who informed Haeuser she was 11 and 12 years old while they were communicating, according to the criminal complaint. Haeuser is accused of having sexually explicit conversations and receiving plenty of nude photos.

Haeuser allegedly exchanged more than 20,000 emails and 13,000 text messages with the girl in one chat, beginning in 2015, and continued to email her for a year after she stopped replying to him in October 2016, according to authorities.

As an incentive to help him lose weight, he allegedly asked for naked images of her.

“Look at what I am!” Haeuser allegedly lamented in another chat a month before the girl stopped replying to him. “I’m 27 years old, I don’t have a job, and I don’t have a degree….”

According to the complaint, the FBI interviewed the girl, who lives out of state, in August, and she verified that she had communicated with Haeuser after meeting him via a mobile game’s chat function. The investigation began in March of last year, after officials got information that Haeuser was “grooming” the young girl.

According to court documents, Haeuser is scheduled to appear in court on December 13th.