Jeff Wiehe | The Journal Gazette
A man accused of soliciting nude photos of boys as young as 12 years old over the internet told investigators he spent the last nine years working for Youth for Christ in the Fort Wayne area.
Federal agents arrested Nathan Hasty, 34, of Huntington, last week on felony charges of receipt of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, according to U.S. District Court documents.
Hasty called himself a Campus Life Director in court documents and is listed on the Youth for Christ website as a leader of Campus Life ministries at two Huntington community middle schools.
Larry Lance, executive director of Fort Wayne Area Youth For Christ, said Monday that Hasty was suspended from his job on Sept. 21 and terminated Sept. 24.
According to court documents, Hasty used three fake Facebook accounts to contact various boys and girls.
He used two of those accounts to pose as a 16-year-old girl and would contact boys in his youth groups who were usually between the ages of 12 and 14, the court documents said.
Hasty posed as a teenage boy in the third account and contacted both girls and boys, according to the court documents.
While pretending to be the teenage girl, Hasty contacted dozens and would flirt with them to gain their trust, investigators wrote in court documents.
Talks with the boys would eventually turn sexual, according to court documents, with Hasty asking specific questions about body parts, whether they like to go skinny dipping and what kind of underwear they wear.
Hasty would then begin asking for nude pictures and then invite the boys to join him in Skype sessions, which were always one-way affairs, court documents said.
Investigators wrote in the documents that Hasty told the boys they should always send pictures of themselves to his iPod, with which he could not make calls.
With his third account, Hasty posed as a 19-year-old boy and would contact both girls and boys, court documents said. Again, talks would turn sexual, investigators wrote.
When investigators came to his home on Sept. 21, Hasty told them that he contacted the boys online using the fake accounts and that he may have said some things “he shouldn’t have said,” according to court documents.
He also admitted that conversations turned sexual, that he asked for nude pictures and that he talked about meeting up with the boys but never followed through, investigators wrote.
A search of his computer turned up several images of underage boys exposing themselves plus videos, according to court documents.
Investigators wrote in the court documents that, so far, they have found that Hasty had been asking for the pictures as far back as Dec. 29.
For more on this story, pick up Tuesday’s print edition of The Journal Gazette or return to www.journalgazette.net after 3 a.m. Tuesday.
