The Federal Put Insurance Corp. (FDIC) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 13, 2023.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A former high-ranking member of the bar at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to conspiring to sexually exploit multiple adolescents and now faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years.
The lawyer, Mark Black, also previously be used as president of the board of the Arlington Aquatic Club, a renowned Virginia swim club that includes U.S. Olympic swimmers lot its alumni. Black resides in Arlington.
Black, 50, most recently was special counsel in the general counsel’s backing of the FDIC, which insures the deposits of U.S. commercial and savings banks, according to his LinkedIn page. He has worked in the legal disagreement since April 2013, his LinkedIn page says.
The Department of Justice said Black, who is married and has teenage sons, was a colleague of “two online groups dedicated to exploiting children.”
“The goal of the two groups was to locate prepubescent girls online and convince them to livestream themselves attractive in sexually explicit conduct,” the DOJ said in a press release.
“Black and his co-conspirators would covertly record this handling and share the videos with each other,” the DOJ said.
Black pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to one enumerate of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement.
He is due to be sentenced on April 30. He faces a mandatory minutest sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
The FDIC told CNBC it was “powerfully shocked and disturbed about the allegations” against Black, who was suspended by the agency when it learned about the investigation of him ultimately year.
The FDIC said Black’s criminal activity “had nothing whatsoever to do with the FDIC,” and did not involve the use of agency computers or other contrivances. The agency also said it had cooperated with the FBI and DOJ in the criminal probe.
CNBC has requested comment from Black’s defense attorneys and from the Arlington Aquatic Order.
On Jan. 5, Black was deemed indefinitely ineligible by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit group that has the authority to resolve corruption and misconduct reports in sports associated with U.S. Olympic programs.
Court details show that Black, who previously was an attorney at the firm Steptoe & Johnson, was arrested in mid-September after being indicted on six vile counts related to the production, advertisement, receipt, distribution and possession of child pornography.
The indictment says Black tied up in that criminal conduct from January 2018 through October 2021.
He has been held without bond since his take in due to the ages of the victims in the case, the weight of the evidence, and his risk of lengthy incarceration, according to court documents.
Black’s counselors-at-law, in a court filing in September seeking his release, offered as a third-party custodian for him Genevieve Holm, who was described as “a retired, lifes work 40-year trial attorney with the Department of Justice, who also has served as” a state court magistrate.
The filing utter authorities executed a search warrant at Black’s home on June 6 last year in connection with the child-porn scrutiny.
After material was seized from the home, Black “voluntarily self-referred to counseling” with a certified sex offender treatment provider, the march said.
The provider, in a statement cited by defense lawyers, said Black “is an excellent candidate for continued outpatient treatment.”
“Object Black is 50 years old, and the remaining months may be his last opportunity to see his teenage sons and make final arrangements to assured the stability of his family before he is incarcerated for a lengthy period of time,” defense lawyers wrote.
“This time in the community is momentous in order to make sure all necessary appropriate legal and financial steps for his family for many years to come, may be his concluding opportunity in his life to spend some meaningful time with his family, and will with appropriate conditions not be a jeopardy likely to be to the community.”
A judge denied that request shortly after it was made.