Toronto man sentenced to 33 years in US prison for exploiting 145 children online

Ramanan Pathmanathan, 40, from Toronto, received a 33-year federal sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty in January to charges of producing child pornography and coercing minors. The US sentence will run consecutively after he completes a 12-year Canadian sentence he received in 2022 for similar crimes. US prosecutors had originally sought 40 years.

From a bedroom desktop computer in his parents' Toronto home, Pathmanathan operated his scheme for seven years using Instagram and Facebook. He created fake profiles pretending to be a teenage boy from New Jersey to build relationships with vulnerable children aged 11 to 17. Some victims were as young as six years old.

Once he gained a child's trust, Pathmanathan demanded they engage in sexual acts on video chat. "He directed them to expose their genitals, and to engage in sexual acts with dogs, siblings and other relatives," according to a statement by US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. In nearly all video chats, he sent children explicit images of adults to show them what he was requesting.

Pathmanathan screen-recorded the videos and stored explicit files on his computer. When children tried to break contact or refuse cooperation, he used sextortion—threatening to share the recordings with their families and school friends. This forced many to continue complying with his demands.

The investigation started when an American victim's mother reported the abuse to local police. Investigators tracked Pathmanathan's digital footprint and IP address to his Toronto residence. Law enforcement raided the property on March 10, 2021, while Pathmanathan was actively exploiting a victim. At 5:09 am that morning, he had saved an explicit video file of a 13-year-old girl.

Following conviction in Canada, Pathmanathan was temporarily surrendered to US authorities in December 2025 to face the federal trial in Columbia. Upon release from prison, he will spend 10 years under supervised release and be placed on the sex offender registry. He must also pay restitution of at least $3,000 per victim. Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the US Justice Department stated: "For years, while hiding in another country behind a fabricated online persona, he used manipulation, threats, and fear to coerce unsuspecting juveniles into producing and engaging in sexually explicit acts, robbing them of their innocence."