Owner of FIT Gym Pleads Not Guilty to Child Porn Charges
Prosecutors allege that Michael Everts sent pornographic images and videos depicting minors to an undercover agent on a hookup app.
Michael Everts, the owner of FIT Personal Training on 17th and Q Streets NW, pleaded not guilty to a charge of distributing child pornography.
Everts was arrested last November after allegedly sending pornographic photographs of prepubescent boys and videos of men sexually abusing children via Telegram to an undercover agent posing as a pedophile.
Court documents claim the FBI was alerted to Everts months earlier after an employee of the location-based hookup app, Sniffies, told investigators that a user — later identified as Everts through his email and phone information — had allegedly “actively [sought] underage [males].”
The report prompted the FBI and the Metropolitan Police Department to conduct a joint sting investigation with Everts as the target.
If convicted of the charge against him, Everts could face a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a possible maximum sentence of up to 20 years.
Once released, he would have to register as a sex offender for life.
During an April 4 arraignment hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Everts pleaded not guilty to the single charge against him.
Although Everts has not waived his right to a jury trial, his attorney, David Benowitz, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Bond, both asked U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to give Everts more time to consider whether to accept a plea deal in which he would plead guilty to a lower charge in exchange for avoiding a trial.
Chutkan scheduled a status hearing for 9 a.m. on June 10, when the parties must inform her whether Everts accepts the plea deal or the case moves forward.
Chutkan ordered Everts to remain in custody without bond until that status hearing.
Benowitz did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia told Metro Weekly they could not comment on the specifics of the plea deal.
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