Fitness coach from Virginia exploited underage clients to send sexual photos, feds say
A virtual bodybuilding coach, based in Virginia, used his position to pressure kids and teens into sending him sexual photos and videos over the course of six years, federal officials said.
Elliott Atwell, 35, of Charlottesville, pleaded guilty in June to sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia said in a Jan. 9 news release.
Now, he has been sentenced to about 21 years in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release, according to the Jan. 8 sentencing.
McClatchy News reached out to Atwell’s attorney Jan. 10 but did not receive an immediate response.
The fitness coach solicited and received sexual content from at least six underage clients, prosecutors said.
When conducting a search on Atwell’s iCloud account, federal investigators found more than 300 images and videos of minors — including minors under the age of 12 — engaged in sexually explicit conduct, court records show.
“Elliott Atwell is a cunning child sex offender, who used his position as a virtual bodybuilding coach to befriend, manipulate, and ultimately sexually exploit numerous minors over the course of many years,” prosecutors said in court documents.
Atwell’s deceiving actions
Portraying himself as a “nutritionist and fitness advisor” for high school students, Atwell reached out to minors online to mentor them between December 2013 and April 2020, prosecutors said.
After gaining trust, he transitioned his conversations with his underage clients to sex and sexuality, eventually manipulating them into sending nude photos and videos along with other sexually explicit content, according to court documents.
Atwell mailed the minors digital cameras, alcohol, knives and sex-related items as “gifts” and offered to complete homework assignments in exchange for sexual content, according to a government sentencing memorandum.
One survivor, who was 15 at the time Atwell reached out, told authorities Atwell threatened to tell people that the teen and his friends used steroids if he spoke up about the abuse, prosecutors said.
“Cases like these remind us how vulnerable our young people are and how vigilant we must be to protect them from manipulative online predators,” acting United States Attorney Zachary T. Lee said in the release.
Charlottesville is about a 70-mile drive northwest of Richmond.
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Fitness coach from Virginia exploited underage clients to send sexual photos, feds say."
