Colorado man jailed for seducing children ages 9 to 14

A 25-year-old Drake man was recently sentenced to 29 years in federal prison for attempting to persuade children to send him sexually explicit photos and videos via private messaging platforms.

The case against Cullen Mackenzie Britton began in July 2020 when a 14-year-old girl contacted Loveland police and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The girl told authorities that Britton tried to get her to send him pictures of her genitals.

According to case documents, authorities identified Britton, a pizza delivery driver, as the owner of the Snapchat account used to lure the girl. They arrested Britton at Denver International Airport as he was returning from a vacation in Mexico. Britton's two cell phones were then confiscated and searched. One of them contained the Snapchat conversation with the 14-year-old:

“I told you I didn’t want to send it to you,” the girl explained after Britton’s first request.

“Why? What's wrong with that,” Britton replied.

“I don’t feel well,” replied the 14-year-old.

Before ending the conversation with the 14-year-old, Britton told her his hometown, his place of work, his age, the place he would like to meet her, and the youngest age of the children he was interested in. Britton told the girl that she was six years old, “but I won't go any lower.”

Authorities later confiscated a third cell phone from Britton. Explicit Snapchat conversations with half a dozen children were found on the three phones. In addition to the 14-year-old, Britton had contact with children ages 9, 10, 11 and 12.

The first mobile phone alone contained 15 photos and 684 videos of child pornography.

Authorities also discovered a WhatsApp exchange of child pornography between Britton and Chris Ciesielski. Ciesielski was prosecuted by federal authorities in Michigan and pleaded guilty to producing child pornography. According to a court document from that case, Ciesielski filmed the sexual assault of a one-year-old girl. He was sentenced to more than 45 years in prison.

After his arrest at the DIA, Britton told Department of Homeland Security investigators in a recorded interview that he had chatted with at least 50 different girls on Snapchat, Anonychat, Kik, Telegram and Instagram over the past year, and admitted that he knew some of them were underage.

Britton entered a guilty plea with prosecutors. He was convicted on September 5 of attempted production of child pornography.

Judge Regina M. Rodriguez presided over the sentence and ordered that Britton be placed under lifetime supervision upon his release from prison and that Britton be required to register as a sex offender upon his release.

“The severity of this sentence demonstrates how seriously we take the sexual exploitation of children,” said Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Matt Kirsch in a press release.

“This verdict represents a victory in the ongoing fight to protect our most vulnerable citizens – our children,” added Ryan L. Spradlin, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Denver, in the same press release. “This individual who used social media to exploit and victimize minors will now face the full force of justice, with a sentence that reflects the severity of his crimes.”

The case was investigated and prosecuted in part as part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood initiative.

Britton is currently housed at FCI Englewood.