A 43-year-old Keaau man is facing federal charges after allegedly using the Snapchat messaging app to lure a 15-year-old girl into sex at an Airbnb property on the Big Island.

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A 43-year-old Keaau man is facing federal charges after allegedly using the Snapchat messaging app to lure a 15-year-old girl into sex at an Airbnb property on the Big Island.

Jeramie Talos Arend, a residential manager in Keaau who is from Kailua, Oahu, was charged June 15 with producing, receiving and distributing child pornography. He made his initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter and is in custody at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, with a detention hearing scheduled for Friday.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion to have Arend held without bail until his trial. He has a misdemeanor conviction from 2008 for failure to appear for a court date in California and is facing a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years, “which is a substantial amount of time that could motivate him to flee,” federal prosecutors argued.

The FBI is aware of a flight to Japan booked by Arend for August, and federal prosecutors said they are concerned he will skip town if released before trial.

In January, the FBI’s Hono­lulu Field Office opened an investigation after the Hawaii Police Department’s Juvenile Aid Section reached out about two underage girls who allegedly were raped by adults.

Hawaii Island police got a search warrant for the Snapchat account belonging to a 15-year-old girl identified in federal court documents as “minor victim 2” or “MV2” and found evidence she had sent multiple selfies and nude videos and photos of herself to the Snapchat username “jusfokiks” — belonging to the defendant — between March and May 2025.

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Arend allegedly used his Snapchat account to send the girl nude photos and videos of himself masturbating, and videos and images of himself and MV2. Arend also sent multiple videos he recorded of him raping the girl, federal prosecutors allege.

Hawaii Island police found Arend’s YouTube channel and were able to match images of him and of him in the Airbnb unit on Hawaii Island shown in the rape videos, prosecutors said.

On April 14, FBI agents interviewed MV2 and showed her a picture of Arend without identifying him. She told them she knew him and that they met on Snapchat. The girl also said she was just “messing around” with him when they were talking, but then he came to Hawaii Island and rented an Airbnb.

“MV2 never wanted to go and never wanted to talk to him. MV2 was in a bad place, and when she’s like that, she does bad things. She snuck out of her house and went to the Airbnb,” according to the court documents detailing her interview. The 15-year-old told the FBI that she had sex with Arend and that he had grabbed his phone and recorded it.

She told the FBI that Arend knew how old she was and said “something to the effect of, ‘You’re going to get me in trouble,’ which she believed was because of her age,” the court documents said.

The FBI included examples of Snapchat messages Arend allegedly sent the girl that contained graphic descriptions of the sex assault.

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