Owner of online broadcaster allegedly involved in underage prostitution

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The New Jersey owner of an online broadcasting service allegedly allowed teenage girls to get paid for engaging in sex acts for a private Internet audience and encouraged his viewers to sexually assault a New York City woman in exchange for $100.

Robert Ianuale, 32, of Hazlet, now faces charges including child endangerment, distribution of child pornography, promoting the prostitution of a minor and financial facilitation of criminal activity stemming from accusations that he used SwerveCast, his online broadcasting platform, to profit from users paying to watch underage sex acts, according to an Associated Press article reported by Philly.com.

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“Profiting off of the sexual abuse of juveniles is intolerable. We cannot allow innocent children to fall prey to online abusers and predators seeking to line their pockets through the sexual exploitation of their victims,” Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said in a statement quoted by New Jersey 101.5.

In addition to the underage allegations, Ianuale has also been accused of offering $100 to SwerveCast users as incentive to sexually assault a 25-year-old New York woman outside her office and broadcast the act online, the Philly.com AP report added.

If convicted of all charges, Ianuale, who used the online moniker “Fist Pump,” could face up to 20 years in prison and supervision for life after release, according to 101.5, which added that officials believed more underage victims may have been involved in similar SwerveCast content.

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Ianuale was being held in Monmouth County Jail on $450,000 bail, the AP reported at Philly.com.