YouTube star Austin Jones, best known for his a cappella covers, has pleaded guilty to a child pornography charge, his lawyer said Monday.
Jones, now 26, was accused of using Facebook Messenger and Apple's iMessage services to solicit videos from girls between the ages of 14 and 15, in which they exposed their genitals, when he was 24.
On Friday, he entered a guilty plea in an Illinois federal court to one charge of child pornography and could face at least five years in prison, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In some cases, Jones coerced the girls to send him explicit videos by telling them they had to prove they are his fans.
The singer amassed a following on YouTube with covers of songs such as "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy and "Sorry" by Justin Bieber. Many of his slickly edited videos are split into 16 frames, with Jones recreating a different part of the song in each frame.
Jones' YouTube channel has more than 534,000 subscribers and his videos have garnered almost 41 million views. As of Monday, the channel was still up on the site, but videos haven't been uploaded since 2017.
YouTube demonetized Jones' channel in 2017, meaning he no longer earns revenue from the platform.
"We take safety on YouTube and allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously. When we’re made aware of serious allegations or convictions we take action, which may include terminating business relationships or suspending monetization," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.
The initial criminal complaint against Jones, which was filed in 2017, details how the YouTuber allegedly coerced several girls to send him videos of themselves while repeating details about their age in the video.
One 14-year-old sent Jones approximately 15 videos, 10 of which are explicit, according to the court records.
In an exchange with another 14-year-old, Jones writes, "Wait ... you're 14?"
The girl responded, "Yea, I'm a youngster."
In that conversation, Jones acknowledged he shouldn't be talking to her due to her age, repeatedly told the girl that she was "so lucky" she had his attention, and then told her she would have to "prove" that she was his biggest fan, according to the court documents.
Later, Jones told the girl, "If you're lucky, maybe I'd let you suck my d---." When the girl said she didn't want either of them to get in trouble over the videos she was making, he replied, "I guess you really aren't my biggest fan .....ok then."
The complaint says in those videos, the girl's genitals are exposed.
Court documents obtained by the Tribune show that Jones acknowledged he had conversations online with six girls, whose ages are either 14 or 15. Jones' lawyer said that his client had been sexually abused by a close relative and he had not properly dealt with his own trauma, the Tribune reported.
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Before his guilty plea, rumors circulated about Jones' lewd behavior.
A petition in 2015, started by an anonymous person, asked that he be removed from the Warped Tour, a traveling music festival mostly comprised of rock acts.
The petition alleged that Jones was asking underage girls for naked pictures. It received more than 9,000 signatures.
Jones also addressed some of the controversy from the rumors on his YouTube page, saying he did ask girls for twerking videos, but that he did not ask them for naked pictures. He acknowledged he shouldn't have asked the girls for the twerking videos.
Jones' sentencing is scheduled for May 3.
