Amarillo man sentenced to 20 years for sexually explicit' conversations with children

Benjamin Jacob Short was sentenced to 20-years in federal prison (Randall County Jail)

AMARILLO, Texas (KVII) — An Amarillo man was sentenced to 20-years in federal prison after using a chat site to have "sexually explicit" conversations with children.

Benjamin Jacob Short pleaded guilty in October 2023 to transportation of child pornography.

On Thursday, he was sentenced to 240 months and lifetime supervised released, and ordered to pay $83,500 in restitution.

According to the criminal complaint, on February 17, 2023, Short contacted an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.

Within the first five messages, Short asked the girl about the size of her breasts and sent a picture of his genitalia.

During a "multiple day chat," Short communicated in a "sexually explicit manner" and sent numerous images of child porn.

On July 19, 2023, Amarillo police served a search warrant on Short's apartment.

He admitted to using Meet24 to communicate with children in a sexually explicit manner, and to distributing child porn to them in an effort to entice them to produce child porn.

Short told police his cell phone contained thousands of child porn images and videos.