Editor’s note: This story contains discussion of child sexual abuse.
A soldier has been sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to distributing and receiving child sexual abuse material online and making remarks about the sexual abuse of children, according to the Army.
Sgt. Amariah Foster, 28, pled guilty to the charges in a military court on Oct. 17. His official charges were two counts of viewing and distributing child sexual abuse material and two counts of indecent language communicated to another, the Army said in a release. Foster was also reduced in rank to E-1 and received a bad conduct discharge as part of the sentencing.
From January 2023 to January 2024, while he was living in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Sembach, Germany, Foster used online platforms X and Telegram to view and trade child sexual abuse material with other users, with whom he discussed explicit fantasies of child sexual assault, according to the Army.
Foster, who joined the Army in 2016, was assigned to the 39th Transportation Battalion, 16th Sustainment Brigade out of Kaiserslautern, Germany, according to a charge sheet the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel provided to Military Times.
A family discovered his crimes and informed military law enforcement.
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The Army Criminal Investigative Division led the investigation, compiling evidence from witnesses, search warrants and digital forensic analysis, the Army said.
During the investigation, Foster lied to investigators by telling them that he only made contact with people on Telegram who were distributing child sexual abuse material so that he could report them.
The investigation found that between Dec. 23, 2023, and Jan. 7, 2024, Foster communicated virtually with an unknown person regarding child sexual abuse material.
In these messages, Foster described working at a daycare facility his mother ran. There, Foster said he was around 6 to 12 boys and described the experience as “heaven.” He described feeding the children food that he’d previously rubbed on his feet.
Foster also admitted to molesting a child years earlier in another virtual correspondence with an unknown user on Jan. 6, 2024.
When he was 17, Foster said in his messages, he babysat a friend’s 4-year-old son and molested the child.
Military Times reached out to the Army Criminal Investigative Division for comment on whether they were investigating this separate instance of abuse or turning it over to local law enforcement.
“Thanks to the tireless efforts of our investigators in pursuing critical leads and sorting through the digital evidence, Sgt. Foster was held accountable for the detestable crime of trading images of child sexual abuse on the internet,” said Maj. Zach Ray, lead prosecutor, Eighth Circuit, Army Office of Special Trial Counsel.
When he is released from prison, Foster will be required to register as a sex offender.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
