Registered sex offender sentenced to prison after posing as 13-year-old on TikTok
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A 39-year-old man plead guilty in court on Thursday to multiple counts of taking indecent liberties with a child.
Shawn Lubell was sentenced to about 9 to 17 years in prison. He also must register as a sex offender for life and upon his release face a minimum of 10 years of satellite-based monitoring.
According to the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, in September of 2025, they received a tip that a registered sex offender was posing as a 12–13-year-old girl on the internet.
Through collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they were able to determine Lubell was impersonating a minor female on TikTok and solicited images and videos from other minor females.
Lubell was then arrested for violation of the Sex Offender Registry requirements. While they analyzed his devices, they were able to recover thousands of messages where he was pretending to be a 13-year-old girl and soliciting personal information and obscene images from over 50 different victims across the country.
This resulted in a guilty plea to 9 counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and 2 counts of failure to register an online identifier.
The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office reminds parents and guardians to monitor their children’s online activity and look out for any interactions with strangers online.
