Bastrop “sugar daddy” sentenced to 25 years for soliciting sex from teenage girls on Snapchat

OUACHITA PARISH, La. (KSLA) - A 33-year-old man was sentenced to 300 months in prison for production of child pornography Nov. 1.

Gary Landon Harper, Jr., of Bastrop, La., received a 25-year sentence following an investigation by the FBI and Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office. They looked into allegations that Harper was misusing Snapchat to contact minor females in the Monroe area. Their investigation revealed that between Jan. 1, 2021, and Oct. 29, 2021, Harper used the social media app to communicate with numerous females between the ages of 13 to 16, who attended Monroe-area middle and high schools.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, Harper would pay some of these girls for their Snapchat login information. He would then use the accounts to impersonate them and direct other females in their contact lists to “friend” accounts that he controlled, under the guise of making money from a “sugar daddy.”

Harper would also pay these girls to send him sexually explicit videos and images and to meet up with him for sex.

The specific instance related to the charge in the indictment occurred between Jan. and Sept. 2021 when Harper enticed a 16-year-old female victim to meet him and have sex in exchange for $150. When they met, Harper filmed the pair having sex inside his pickup truck. He did this with the knowledge that the female was a minor, the attorney’s office said. After gaining a search warrant and positively identified the female victim, investigators recovered the video recording from Harper’s cell phone.

Through their investigation, agents learned Harper victimized more than 25 minor females.

Harper pleaded guilty to the one count of production of child pornography in this case on April 5, 2023.

CRIME IN THE ARKLATEX >>>