PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-4131

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

TROY GEORGE SKINNER,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. M. Hannah Lauck, District Judge. (3:19-cr-00019-MHL-1)

Argued: March 8, 2023 Decided: June 8, 2023

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, NIEMEYER, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Laura Jill Koenig, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Jacqueline Romy Bechara, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Geremy C. Kamens, Federal Public Defender, Frances H. Pratt, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alexandria, Virginia; Robert J. Wagner, ROBERT J. WAGNER, PLC, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, Brian R. Hood, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 22-4131 Doc: 71 Filed: 06/08/2023 Pg: 2 of 22

PER CURIAM:

Troy George Skinner, a citizen and resident of New Zealand, carried on an online

relationship with a thirteen-year-old girl in Virginia that involved several sexually explicit

video calls. After law enforcement discovered numerous images and video recordings

from those calls on Skinner’s cell phone and computer, a federal grand jury charged

Skinner with nine counts of producing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 2251(a). He entered a conditional guilty plea to one of the counts and was sentenced to

twenty-one years in prison.

Skinner challenges both his conviction and sentence on appeal. He first argues that

his conviction involves an impermissible extraterritorial application of § 2251(a) because

he was in New Zealand when the unlawful images and videos were produced. Second, he

contends that his conviction violates the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause because he

lacked adequate notice that the victim was underage. Third, and finally, he challenges his

sentence on the grounds that the district court improperly applied a two-level enhancement

for offenses involving “sexual contact.” Finding no error, we affirm Skinner’s conviction

and sentence.

I.

A.

In December 2017, Skinner began communicating with a girl identified as “R.D.”

on Steam, an online gaming and messaging platform. At the time, R.D. was thirteen years

old and lived in Goochland, Virginia, and Skinner was twenty-four and lived in New

2 USCA4 Appeal: 22-4131 Doc: 71 Filed: 06/08/2023 Pg: 3 of 22

Zealand. Skinner and R.D. soon moved their conversations to another online platform,

Discord, which allows users to exchange typed messages and participate in live-streamed

video calls on their computers and cell phones.

During their early online conversations, Skinner truthfully told R.D. that he was

twenty-four, and R.D. falsely claimed that she was sixteen. R.D. also mentioned that she

was home-schooled. In messages exchanged on January 7, 2018, Skinner told R.D. he

wanted to be her boyfriend, to whi

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