An Indiana man has been charged with stalking a 12-year-old girl online, coercing her to harm herself and send him sexually explicit images, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced.
Billy Joe Holman, 26, also known as William Holman, of West Lebanon, Indiana, is charged in a two-count criminal complaint with cyberstalking and possession of child pornography. He made an initial appearance Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott J. Frankel in federal court in the Northern District of Indiana and was ordered detained.
According to court documents, Holman met the victim in or around October 2025 on a social media platform. Prosecutors said he knew the girl was 12 years old and systematically targeted her through grooming and coercion, using a pattern of manipulation that included alternating affection with verbal abuse and threats.
Over the course of approximately one month, Holman directed the girl to harm herself, authorities said. This included carving his initials into her skin and punching herself in the stomach on video, which she then sent to him. Holman also demanded that she take and send him photographs that constituted child sexual abuse material, according to the complaint.
The cyberstalking charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, while possession of child pornography carries a statutory maximum of 10 years. Holman also faces a potential fine of up to $250,000.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann appointed Frazer, a veteran prosecutor, as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, ending a dispute between the judiciary and Trump administration.
Brann disqualified three Justice Department officials from leading the U.S. attorney’s office, ruling they were installed in an illegal power grab after the judge previously barred the president’s first pick, former personal attorney Alina Habba, from the post.
“With all these options remaining, why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this district potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure? The government tells us: the president doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants,” wrote Brann.
Frazer credited investigators from the Newark and Indianapolis Joint Terrorism Task Forces of the FBI, the Morris County Sheriff’s Office and the Dover Police Department. He also thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana for its assistance.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sammi Malek of the National Security Unit in Newark, with assistance from Trial Attorneys Justin Sher and James Donnelly of the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a Justice Department initiative launched in 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The charges are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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