Online Bodybuilding Coach Exploited Minors, Collected Explicit Photos
A federal has sentenced Elliott Atwell, an online bodybuilding coach, to decades in prison for sexually exploiting minors. Photo credit: YouTube.
However, from time to time, youth athletics has a darker side. One of these cases occurred in Charlottesville, where a bodybuilding coach was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for sexual abuse of children and child pornography.
Elliott Atwell, a 35-year-old man, will spend 254 months in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography, according to a Justice Department press release.
He previously pled guilty back in June 2024.
Solicited Minors by Claiming to Be an Online Bodybuilding Coach
Starting in December 2013 and up to April 2020, Atwell claimed that he was a “virtual bodybuilding coach” for high school students who wanted to try and become bodybuilders, according to court documents.
Atwell used this to approach minors and “mentor” them. However, their conversations quickly devolved from training suggestions to sex and sexuality.
Prosecutors say Atwell used his position to encourage his students to send him nude photos and videos of themselves. He talked at least six minors into recording sexually explicit videos and then sending them back to him.
In return, Atwell sent them gifts like digital cameras and other items, providing additional instructions on activities he wanted them to perform for him.
During the search of his residence, the FBI found over 300 images and sexually explicit videos of minors.
Previous Legal Woes
Atwell, who claimed to be a “godfather of the teen aesthetic,” was previously arrested back in 2020 after sending a 16-year-old from New Jersey “male enhancement pills,” according to The Daily Progress.
After his arrest in 2020, the Justice Department revealed in a statement that Atwell told the minor the medication would cause him to have erections that would last for hours and would allow him to have sex “like a porn star.”
Official Statements
Acting United States Attorney Zachary T. Lee condemned Atwell in a statement after his sentencing.
“This defendant targeted young people who put their trust in him as a coach and mentor and violated that trust to satisfy his own desires,” Lee said. “Cases like these remind us how vulnerable our young people are and how vigilant we must be to protect them from manipulative online predators.”
Federal authorities also called people who were or know someone who this man victimized to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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