Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Las Vegas sex offender convicted again, faces 60 years in prison

David Cohen

David Cohen

A Las Vegas man with an extensive history of sex crimes against children that dates back decades will serve up to 60 years in prison for possessing child pornography, according to the office of the U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada.

David Alan Cohen, 58, a convicted sex offender, who on Wednesday was again convicted of possession, and receipt or distribution of child pornography, faces at least 15 years when he is sentenced in March, officials said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off Metro Police on Aug. 23, 2016, that child pornography — which displayed young children being assaulted — was being downloaded from a house in the 500 block of Fogg Street, according to a federal complaint.

The address is near Stewart Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard but also in the vicinity of a daycare and elementary and middle schools.

Nevada sex offender registry records show that Cohen was not compliant as he’d failed to register.

The month following the tip, officers and agents were at Cohen’s doorstep. In their interview, the 58-year-old man, who waived his Miranda rights, opened up about childhood trauma that he says mental health experts had tried to remedy.

Investigators ultimately found 600 electronic files of child pornography from 11 devices, officials said.

Cohen, who also uses the “diaper man” pseudonym, according to state sex offender records, said his issues began as a young boy when he had an “obsession with revealing himself to others,” the complaint said.

He said it escalated to sexual contact with children when he was a teenager. “It was something I couldn’t control and couldn’t contain,” he was quoted as saying.

This led to a three-year stint at a medical facility that ended when he was deemed rehabilitated, Cohen said. “He explained his belief that he was not cured.”

“David Cohen said he had his own attorney as a teen because he got into so much trouble with sex offenses,” the complaint said.

His New York State criminal record originated with a 1976 arrest followed by another in 1983, the complaint said. They quickly began to pile up with subsequent arrests in 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1989.

Further information on the cases, which ranged from public lewdness to acting in a manner injurious to a child under 16, wasn’t immediately available, but Las Vegas investigators obtained the files as well as newspaper clippings from East Coast authorities, according to the complaint.

Cohen told investigators he’d suppressed illegal sexual urges with fetishes, such as one in which he’d role play in diapers, the complaint said.

However, “he admittedly found himself reverting back to his former interests in children in the form of inappropriate things he would watch on the internet,” Cohen said, according to the complaint. “He said he knew what he was doing was wrong and inappropriate but he did not know how to stop it. The internet, he claimed, gave him an outlet.”

Cohen also faced a $500,000 fine, officials said. Metro and the FBI investigated the case.