Former Arlington Aquatic Club Board President Mark Black Pleads Guilty In Child Porn Case

By James Sutherland on SwimSwam

Mark Black, the former Arlington Aquatic Club (AAC) Board President who was indicted on child porn charges earlier this month, pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit multiple children in Virginia federal court on Tuesday.

Black, 50, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of coercion and enticement. He faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum life sentence.

The Department of Justice said Black was a member of “two online groups dedicated to exploiting children” between January 2018 and October 2021.

“The goal of the two groups was to locate prepubescent girls online and convince them to livestream themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” the DOJ said in a press release.

“Black and his co-conspirators would covertly record this conduct and share the videos with each other.”

The DOJ said that in July 2019, Black “induced a prepubescent minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct on a live-streaming application while screen-recording that activity.”

“That same month, Black and a co-conspirator also groomed another prepubescent minor to engage in sexually explicit acts on a photo and video-sharing application. The co-conspirator surreptitiously hacked into that girl’s live-video feed and recorded the sexual acts before sending them to Black.”

An Arlington native, Black was also a former high-ranking lawyer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he was most recently special counsel in the general counsel’s office which insures the deposits of U.S. commercial and savings banks.

The FDIC suspended Black when it heard of the investigation last year and told CNBC it was “deeply shocked and disturbed by the allegations.”

First added to the U.S. Center for SafeSport last summer, Black was deemed permanently ineligible after his indictment on Jan. 5.

AAC is a Virginia-based club that earned silver medal status in USA Swimming’s 2022-23 excellence program. AAC produced a Tokyo Olympian two summers ago and achieved gold medal certification for the first time in 2021-22.

Black is scheduled to be sentenced on April 30.

SwimSwam: Former Arlington Aquatic Club Board President Mark Black Pleads Guilty In Child Porn Case