Rochester man appears in court on 13 cyber sex crime charges

John Matthew Timmerman of Rochester appeared in court Thursday, Feb. 27, on 13 charges related to online solicitation and sexual exploitation of children.

Timmerman faces the following felony charges: three counts of electronic communication relating to or describing sexual contact with a child, four counts of possession of child pornography, one count of disseminating child pornography of a minor under 14, four counts of use of a minor in a sexual performance or pornographic work and one count of child solicitation.

As reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS sister station KAAL, Timmerman is being held at the Olmsted County ADC on $150,000 bail with conditions or $750,000 bail with no conditions.

In October of 2024, Rochester police received cyber tips related to someone soliciting minors to produce Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), or child pornography.

Rochester police realized there were also 2022 and 2023 cyber tips related to the same suspect — Timmerman, who lives in southwest Rochester. Police searched his residence and seized several electronic devices.

According to court documents, Timmerman said he uses social media but denied chatting with anyone on his phone. Timmerman allegedly told police they could look at his personal phone but not his work phone.

In November of 2024, Rochester police searched Timmerman’s personal phone and two work phones. One of the work phones had 44 different Facebook accounts Timmerman appeared to have created to impersonate minors.

The other work phone allegedly had five Facebook and Instagram accounts Timmerman created to impersonate minors.

If a child blocked Timmerman on one account, he would send messages from another, according to court documents.

Police claim that several of the accounts had been messaging minors and that he had 169 victims in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and other countries.

Timmerman allegedly solicited many of the victims to produce CSAM — and when many did, he would threaten to send the explicit video or photos to their friends, family, sports teams, and other.

Some of the victims would beg Timmerman not to send their photos to people and would threaten to end their life; Timmerman would continue to threaten the victims with disseminating their photos,” court documents read. “Through chats, Timmerman extensively coerced his minor victims to engage in end-to-end encrypted (live) Facetime calls for sessions that lasted sometimes in excess of 20 minutes. During some of these calls, he would record or screenshot their images.”

“We refer to it as sextortion,” said Sgt. Ben Schlag, leader of RPD’s Intelligence & Forensic Technology Unit responsible for catching Timmerman. “It’s very, very difficult for victims to come forward due to embarrassment or shame or fear.”

According to court documents, Timmerman allegedly had at least one victim in Olmsted County — a juvenile male who sent photos and video of himself to what he thought was a juvenile girl.

“About a month later, he received about 100 messages that would say ‘hello”’ ‘remember me’ Timmerman would then send Victim 1 the photos and video he previously took of himself. Timmerman threatened to send the photos to Victim 1’s ex-girlfriend,” court documents read.

In July 2024, Timmerman allegedly contacted 14 victims between ages 13 and 17, many of which he coerced into sexual activity and conversations on-camera by threatening to send pictures and videos to friends and family.

In August 2024, he allegedly had 88 victims between ages 10 and 17, police allege. In September of 2024, there were 18 victims, ages 12 to 17.

In October, there were 21 victims aged 12 to 17. In November, there were allegedly 17 victims ages 9-17.

Court documents allege that Timmerman had coerced juveniles into creating sexual content as early as December 2021.

Court documents further allege that there were around 300 more social media chats that appeared coercive or threatening in nature, but because messages disappeared after the other party blocked Timmerman, police could not determine whether their contents were illegal.

Police also located 95 files of child pornography on one of Timmerman’s work phones and 11 files on his other work phone, according to court documents.

Experts with the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension say it’s the ease of internet access for many young people that makes it so easy for them to be victimized.

“Their whole social network is oftentimes online in addition to the people they see in their lives day to day,” said bureau superintendent Drew Evans. “It’s not unusual for kids to be ‘friends’ in the sense online with people that they’ve never actually even met.”

Officials with both RPD and BCA credit their collaboration on cases like this for the arrest.

“The Rochester Police Department is very thankful for the relationships we’ve built throughout the years with the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and the Minnesota BCA,” said Sgt. Schlag. “We could not do what we do without them, and it is absolutely a team effort, and we’re proud to work with them each and every day.”

Timmerman is scheduled to appear again in Olmsted County Court on March 12.