Jefferson County Woman Pleads Guilty to Sexual Exploitation Crimes

Amber Decker admits she conspired with her husband to video-record the abuse of a 2-year-old child

UTICA, NEW YORK – Amber Decker, age 25, of Antwerp, New York, pled guilty today to all counts of a seven-count indictment charging that she, together with her husband, conspired to sexually exploit, and sexually exploited, a 2-year-old child for the purpose of producing images and videos of the abuse.

The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith and James N. Hendricks, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

As a part of her guilty plea, Decker admitted that on several occasions in July and August 2018, while she was living in Jefferson County, New York, and her husband was located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, she videotaped her sexual abuse of the 2-year-old, and uploaded the video files to a cloud storage account for her husband to view.

United States District Judge David N. Hurd will sentence Decker on October 24, 2019.  Her husband, Logan Decker, is charged with the same offenses, and is scheduled for trial on September 30, 2019.  The charges in the indictment against Logan Decker are merely accusations. Logan Decker is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty

Each of the seven crimes to which Amber Decker pled guilty carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of at least 5 years and up to life.  She will also be required to register as a sex offender.  A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.

This case is being investigated by the FBI, the New York State Police, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and the Sioux Falls, South Dakota Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa M. Fletcher, Project Safe Childhood Coordinator for the Northern District of New York.

Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, Project Safe Childhood is led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), and is designed to marshal federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.