United States v. Ynddy Blanc

Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit·Decided March 27, 2025·No. 22-14128·Unpublished

Opinion

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

No. 22-14128

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus YNDDY BLANC,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 0:22-cr-60012-JIC-1

USCA11 Case: 22-14128 Document: 83-1 Date Filed: 03/27/2025 Page: 2 of 20

2 Opinion of the Court 22-14128

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JORDAN, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM:

Following a multi-day trial, a federal jury convicted Ynddy Blanc of two charges based on child pornography found on his cell phone: transportation of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1) & (b)(1); and possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). The district court sentenced him to 168 months of imprisonment, a term within the advisory range under the Sentencing Guidelines. He now appeals, raising a number of challenges to his convictions and his sentence. Following a review of the record, and with the benefit of oral argument , we affirm.1

I

We summarize the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the government. See United States v. Mapson, 96 F.4th 1323, 1328 (11th Cir. 2024). Before doing so, we set out the elements of the charged offenses to provide context for the issues presented on appeal.

To convict Mr. Blanc of the transportation offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1), the government had to prove that he “‘knowingly transport[ed] or ship[ped]’ the [child] pornography ‘using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or

1 We address only the issues that we believe warrant discussion. With respect

to any issues not specifically discussed, we summarily affirm.

22-14128 Opinion of the Court 3

affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means including by computer or mails.’” United States v. Little, 864 F.3d 1283, 1288 n.1 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting § 2252(a)(1)). To convict him of the possession offense under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), the government had to prove that he “knowingly possesse[d]” child pornography which “‘ha[d] been shipped or transported using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or which was produced using materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported, by any means including by computer.’” 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). Both charges, then, required the government to prove that Mr. Blanc knew that his cell phone contained child pornography.

A

In April of 2021, Mr. Blanc initiated a Facebook Messenger conversation with an undercover officer who was posing as a 14- year-old girl. He requested photos of the fictitious child and asked if she liked performing or receiving oral sex, if she had been involved in threesomes, and if she had a favorite sex position. He accepted an invitation to meet the fictitious child at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida, for sexual activity and said he would bring condoms . When he arrived at a nearby park, police officers from the St. Petersburg Police Department arrested him. The officers searched him and found condoms and two cell phones, including the one he had used to communicate with the fictitious child. There was no evidence of child pornography, or searches for child pornography, on the phones.

4 Opinion of the Court 22-14128

The state charged Mr. Blanc with the attempted enticement of a child in violation of Fla. Stat. § 847.0135(4)(A) (prohibiting, in relevant part, “travel[ing]” within the state “for the purpose of engaging in . . . unlawful sexual conduct with a child or with another person believed by the person to be a child after using a computer online service [or] Internet service” to “[s]educe, solicit, lure, or entice or attempt to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child or another person believed by the person to be a child, to engage in . . . unlawful sexual conduct”). He was released on bond pending trial.

While on bond for the attempted enticement charge, Mr.

Blanc traveled to Haiti to visit family members. He returned to the United States on January 19, 2022, through the Ft. Lauderdale Airport , where Customs and Border Patrol officers referred him for secondary inspection based on the pending state criminal case.

When they conducted a preliminary search of his cell phone (with the password provided by Mr. Blanc) CBP officers found one video of child pornography in a photo album that stored content received from WhatsApp, a phone application used for making phone calls and exchanging messages.

A user must go to the app store on his phone to download WhatsApp. Once it is installed, WhatsApp automatically saves videos and images received through its chats to the user’s phone unless the user elects to change the default settings. Mr. Blanc’s phone was set to the default settings, and WhatsApp therefore automatically downloaded child pornography onto the phone.

22-14128 Opinion of the Court 5

A grand jury returned an indictment charging Mr. Blanc with the transportation and possession of child pornography. Mr. Blanc defended against the charges on the ground that the child pornography videos on his phone—which he had owned for about eight months—were automatic downloads from the WhatsApp program that he was unaware of.

B

Following the discovery of the child pornography, Special Agents Jeanne Neill and Eric Stowers from the Department of Homeland Security interviewed Mr. Blanc. He waived his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), consented to a search of his phone, and agreed to be interviewed. The recorded interview took about one and half hours, including a break.

Mr. Blanc told Agents Neill and Stowers that he used WhatsApp and that some of the groups that he belonged to exchanged pornographic videos, including “kids porn.” He also recalled seeing a couple of child pornography videos through these groups and described one of the videos from memory. He also said that he had seen another video involving a 10-year-old girl performing oral sex on an adult male. But he denied seeing other pornographic videos found on his phone, and explained that any videos he received through WhatsApp would “automatically download” to his phone without his knowledge and be saved both to his “pictures ” on the phone’s camera roll and to a designated WhatsApp folder in the phone’s photo album. He acknowledged that he did

6 Opinion of the Court 22-14128

not delete child pornography videos from his phone after seeing them.

Brian Hixson, a DHS computer forensic analyst, found 18 videos of child pornography on Mr. Blanc’s phone. Over defense objection, video clips from some of the videos were played for the jury.

Of the 72 WhatsApp groups on the phone, 67 had zero child pornography videos. And for the five groups that had child pornography videos, those videos were a small percentage of the downloads . For example, the “Men neg” group had 1,696 downloads but only two child pornography videos.

According to the videos’ metadata, Mr. Blanc received the videos through WhatsApp from five different group chats that he had joined or created himself. One of the group chats had a Haitian Creole title (“Rache [Pwel] Timoun 2000”) which in context meant having sex with children in a manner so rough that their pubic hair falls off.

Mr. Blanc told Agents Neill and Stowers that he had removed himself or been removed from some of the groups that were sharing child pornography, and made critical comments about that content when he saw it. Agent Neill confirmed that she saw removal messages in certain groups, including one dated November 24, 2021, in which Mr. Blanc had been removed. Agent Neill said, however, that she could not find evidence on the phone that he had removed himself from other group chats because the

22-14128 Opinion of the Court 7

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

United States v. Ynddy Blanc, (11th Cir. 2025).

United States v. Ynddy Blanc (United States v. Ynddy Blanc) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

United States v. Raphael Bernard Bradberry
466 F.3d 1249 (Eleventh Circuit, 2006)
United States v. Ellisor
522 F.3d 1255 (Eleventh Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Kapordelis
569 F.3d 1291 (Eleventh Circuit, 2009)
Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Old Chief v. United States
519 U.S. 172 (Supreme Court, 1997)
Johnson v. United States
520 U.S. 461 (Supreme Court, 1997)
United States v. Alfaro-Moncada
607 F.3d 720 (Eleventh Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Dobbs
629 F.3d 1199 (Tenth Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Pruitt
638 F.3d 763 (Eleventh Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Hill
643 F.3d 807 (Eleventh Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Charles Eugene Fortenberry
971 F.2d 717 (Eleventh Circuit, 1992)
United States v. Philip M. Sebolt
460 F.3d 910 (Seventh Circuit, 2006)
Staples v. United States
511 U.S. 600 (Supreme Court, 1994)
United States v. Peter Hesser
800 F.3d 1310 (Eleventh Circuit, 2015)
United States v. Mario Wilchcombe
838 F.3d 1179 (Eleventh Circuit, 2016)
United States v. James Dale Little
864 F.3d 1283 (Eleventh Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Carlos Rodriguez Nerey
877 F.3d 956 (Eleventh Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Tanganica Corbett
921 F.3d 1032 (Eleventh Circuit, 2019)