Rosemount Man Charged with Sexual Solicitation of Child

A Rosemount man charged with sending a sexually explicit video and text messages to a 14-year-old Rosemount girl earlier this year has been arrested.

Robert Lee Ranzy IV, 22, was charged in January with two felony counts of electronic solicitation of a child, each of which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Each charge has a mandatory minimum penalty of a $1,500 fine.

Ranzy was arrested early on the morning of Nov. 27 in Hastings on a nationwide warrant dated Jan. 27.

According to the criminal complaint, a Rosemount woman told police Jan. 11 that Ranzy, who lived in the same townhouse complex, had apparently been sending her daughter explicit messages and videos.

The woman told police that she and her daughter share a cell-phone account. She said that while she was looking through text messages on the phone, she found a video that had been sent to her daughter, showing Ranzy masturbating.

When the woman confronted her daughter about the video, the girl admitted receiving it and told her mother that she had – at Ranzy’s request – taken three photographs of herself nude and sent the photos to Ranzy’s cell phone, according to the complaint.

Police examined the cell phone and found the video of Ranzy, along with three nude pictures of the girl, all of them sent on Jan. 7.

The video shows Ranzy looking into the camera and saying, “I love you, baby,” then focuses on his genitals, according to the complaint.

Ranzy made a first appearance on the charges Nov. 27. He is being held in the Dakota County Jail in Hastings on a $100,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in the case is scheduled Dec. 17 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.