Long Island child therapist pleads guilty to sharing baby rape pornography
A Long Island child therapist admitted Wednesday she collected and shared baby rape videos online, and even pretended to be the one doing the raping in online chats.
Renee Hoberman, 37, who also goes by the name Rina, pleaded guilty to receipt and distribution of child pornography in Long Island Federal Court, after she posted several videos on the social media network Kik.
Based on federal sentencing guidelines, she could face roughly 10 to 12½ years in prison, with a mandatory five years behind bars when she's sentenced Nov. 18.
Hoberman has been a licensed clinical social worker since December 2020, state records show, and a now-deleted online profile described her as a therapist in Melville, L.I., serving children from birth to 17 years old.
In her off-time, though, she was posting videos to Kik between June and October 2024 that showed violent sexual acts against several children between 6 months and 2 years old, according to a criminal complaint. The videos spurred several tips to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, according to the complaint.
The videos came from accounts tied to Hoberman, with names like 'badgurl854,' 'Daddywhospanks Naked,' and 'troublegirl2434,' the feds allege.
Hoberman also pretended to be a man in a chat on Oct. 16, claiming she raped and punished children while others watched, and invited the person she was messaging to visit 'his' family in New York to spank the children, according to the complaint.
When Homeland Security Investigations agents raided her Plainview, L.I. home last year, they found more child porn, and evidence she sent child porn via the Telegram app, according to the complaint. She told the agents she is sexually aroused by violent depictions of children from infancy to age 3, according to the complaint.
'The defendant, a licensed social worker, admitted to distributing extremely vile and unthinkable videos depicting the horrific sexual abuse of babies,' Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement Wednesday. 'The videos the defendant distributed and sought for her own perverse pleasure showed the most innocent members of our society being restrained and violently raped.'
State records show she surrendered her social worker license in April because she 'could not successfully defend against allegations of distribution of child pornography.'
Hoberman remains held without bail in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Her lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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