I. The sufficiency of the evidence to prove the production count: 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a)
Appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction, after a jury trial, of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), which mandates a minimum 15-year prison term for: “Any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in . . . any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct . . .”
Back in 2018, Appellant “was in the living room of his girlfriend’s house, talking to someone over Kik Messenger, an instant-messaging app.” See Opinion (“Op”) at 4. While “[h]is girlfriend’s seventeen-year-old daughter was sleeping, fully clothed, on the couch in the same room, with her face turned away from him[,]” he “turned on his camera and recorded two short videos” that “show him masturbating close to the minor—first sitting or lying …