United States v. Stephen Vosilla

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: June 29, 2026
• Docket: 25-5724
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0284n.06

No. 25-5724 FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Jun 29, 2026 FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk

) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT v. ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN ) DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE STEPHEN VOSILLA, ) Defendant-Appellant. ) ) OPINION

Before: BOGGS, KETHLEDGE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Stephen Vosilla appeals the revocation of his supervised

release. We reject his arguments and affirm.

I.

In 2010, Vosilla persuaded two minor girls to send him sexually explicit videos of

themselves. He then threatened to distribute the videos unless the girls sent more. Police learned

of the scheme, obtained a warrant to search Vosilla’s Tennessee residence, and found hundreds of

digital images and videos containing child pornography. Vosilla later pled guilty to possession of

child pornography. The district court sentenced him to 70 months’ imprisonment, to be followed

by 25 years of supervised release.

In October 2019, Vosilla began his term of supervised release. His conditions of

release required him to refrain from committing new criminal offenses, to comply with No. 25-5724, United States v. Vosilla

Tennessee’s sex-offender-registration laws, and to obtain his probation officer’s approval before

possessing or using any internet-capable device.

A year later, Vosilla told his probation officer that he had purchased a smart TV and three

gaming consoles: an Xbox 360, a Nintendo Switch, and a PlayStation 4. Vosilla admitted that he

had used the internet-capable consoles and knew the password to his family’s Wi-Fi network. The

probation officer reprimanded Vosilla and instructed him not to use the devices. Later, Vosilla

reported that he had purchased a PlayStation 5. The probation officer again told him not to use

the device, and Vosilla agreed to store it in a closet with the other consoles.

In December 2024, Sony Interactive Entertainment reported to the National Center for

Missing and Exploited Children a series of PlayStation online chats that appeared to involve the

exploitation of a minor. The chats were between “Emily,” a 15-year-old girl in Iowa, and a user

named “tastyDVAyum96,” whose IP address traced to Vosilla’s residence. The user discussed

pornography with Emily and asked her to send nude photos of herself. Emily eventually blocked

the user. In a chat with Emily’s sister, another account tied to Vosilla’s IP address threatened to

distribute Emily’s photos unless she unblocked tastyDVAyum96.

Police interviewed Emily and her sister and then obtained a warrant to search Vosilla’s

residence. Hamblen County detective Pamela Phillips executed the warrant and found a

PlayStation 5 beside Vosilla’s bed and a plugged-in Nintendo Switch and Xbox in the den. Vosilla

waived his Miranda rights and spoke with Phillips. He admitted that he owned the PlayStation 5

and Xbox and knew he was not supposed to have them. He also admitted that he occasionally

used his mother’s phone to access the internet and had used three email addresses without reporting

them, as required by Tennessee’s sex-offender-registration laws. Police ultimately arrested Vosilla

for violating those laws.

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Vosilla’s probation officer thereafter petitioned the district court to revoke his supervised

release. The petition alleged three violations: (1) Vosilla committed a new criminal offense by

failing to report his email addresses; (2) he violated the condition requiring compliance with

Tennessee’s sex-offender-registration laws; and (3) he possessed and used internet-capable

gaming consoles without approval.

The district court held a revocation hearing. Vosilla’s probation officer testified about the

conditions of Vosilla’s supervised release, her interactions with Vosilla, and the alleged violations.

Detective Phillips testified about the tip from Sony, the search of Vosilla’s residence, her interview

with Vosilla, and the new Tennessee charge. (At the time of the hearing, that charge had been

dismissed, but Phillips testified that the case would later go before a grand jury.) The district court

found by a preponderance of the evidence that Vosilla had committed all three violations. The

court then revoked Vosilla’s supervised release and sentenced him to 18 months’ imprisonment,

to be followed by a new 25-year term of supervised release. This appeal followed.

II.

We review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo, its factual findings for clear error,

and its decision to revoke a defendant’s supervised release for an abuse of discretion. See United

States v. Kontrol, 554 F.3d 1089, 1091-92 (6th Cir. 2009).

Vosilla challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the district court’s conclusion

that he had violated the conditions of his supervised release. A district court may revoke

supervised release if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant violated a

condition of release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Here, at the revocation hearing, Phillips testified

that Vosilla admitted that he had used three email accounts without registering them, as Tennessee

law required. Phillips further testified that Tennessee authorities had charged Vosilla with

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violating the state’s sex-offender-registration laws based on that conduct. The district court

credited Phillips’s testimony, and Vosilla did not present evidence to rebut it. The court therefore

properly found that Vosilla had committed a new criminal offense and failed to comply with

Tennessee’s sex-offender-registration requirements, in violation of two conditions of his

supervised release.

Phillips also testified that the IP address provided by Sony had been traced to Vosilla’s

residence and that officers had found a PlayStation beside Vosilla’s bed and an Xbox in the den.

Phillips added that Vosilla admitted that he owned those devices and knew he was not permitted

to have them. Ample circumstantial evidence therefore supported the district court’s finding that

Vosilla had used an internet-capable device without his probation officer’s approval, in violation

of a condition of his supervised release. See United States v. Mack, 808 F.3d 1074, 1080 (6th Cir.

2015).

Vosilla responds that the Sony tip was inadmissible hearsay and that the district court

abused its discretion by relying on it. But the court made clear that “the only issue” before it was

whether Vosilla had possessed or used internet-capable devices. R. 159, PageID 2133. Evidence

independent of the Sony tip established that violation: officers found such devices in Vosilla’s

residence, and Vosilla admitted that he possessed them without approval. Thus, even without the

Sony tip, sufficient evidence supported revocation.

Finally, Vosilla argues that the district court abused its discretion in crafting Vosilla’s

sentence, he says, based on unproven allegations rather than proven violations. We construe this

argument as a procedural-reasonableness challenge, which we review for abuse of discretion. See

United States v. Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436, 440 (6th Cir. 2018). Here, the court properly considered

the applicable § 3553(a) factors, including Vosilla’s history and characteristics, the need for

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deterrence, and the need to protect the public. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3583(c). The court

permissibly considered that Vosilla’s original offense involved the exploitation of minors through

the internet and that he had possessed internet-capable devices without approval during supervised

release. Against that backdrop, the court acted within its discretion when it considered the

evidence involving Emily and concluded that “there’s a strong need to protect the Emilys of the

world from Mr. Vosilla.” R. 159, PageID 2137.

The district court’s judgment is affirmed.

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