A 56-year-old nuclear physicist at one of the nation’s top government research labs is behind bars on accusations he solicited underage girls for sex chats and explicit videos – at least one of which he scripted from start to finish, complete with suggested camera angles and stage direction.
Andrew Worrall, director of nuclear energy programs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in eastern Tennessee, was ultimately busted on child exploitation charges thanks in part to his ex-wife, who had herself been contacted by a teen Worrall targeted on Snapchat, according to previously unreported court filings.
The ex-wife, whose name The Independent is withholding for privacy purposes, told authorities that Worrall’s purported fixation on minors contributed to the collapse of their relationship, one of the documents reveals.
Oak Ridge was a key site for the Manhattan Project, the ultra-secret World War II-era program that created the world’s first nuclear bomb.
Worrall, who in 2021 won the U.S. Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award for “addressing a grand challenge in the safeguarding of nuclear material,” was arrested October 6 by agents with the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General.
He is no longer working at Oak Ridge, facility spokeswoman Sara Shoemaker told The Independent. It is unclear if Worrall is still employed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the entity that oversees the facility, which did not respond on Friday to a request for comment.
In one series of text messages federal investigators extracted from Worrall’s phone, he appeared to fantasize about spending the night with the youngster, according to a criminal complaint filed October 3 in Knoxville federal court.
“Would you be able to sleep over or no?” he allegedly asked the teen, who told Worrell she was just 16.
“Yeah I would just say I’m going to my friends house and then you could pick me up from there, and then you’d just have to take me back there so my mom doesn’t know,” she responded.
“Love it, so tell me… do you want me to be a gentle daddy or a dominating daddy?” Worrall allegedly continued.
“[I]t depends what you want[,] I like to be submissive,” the girl replied.
“Good,” Worrall told her, according to the affidavit. “Yeah I like to take control. Lead. Dominate totally.”
A related search warrant application obtained by The Independent contains a raft of additional details pertaining to the investigation, including the unexpected nexus between the teen and Worrall’s ex-wife, a nuclear nonproliferation researcher at Oak Ridge, that led to his apprehension and October 15 indictment on two felony counts: sexual exploitation of a child and enticement.
The 52-page warrant application explains that Worrall’s ex emailed Oak Ridge officials on July 14, after an 18-year-old Michigan resident emailed the woman screenshots of extremely explicit conversations between the two. Earlier in the month, Worrall had added the girl on Snapchat, and she told him she was only 16, according to the warrant application.
The warrant application, which gave the feds access to Worrall’s electronic devices and any “bags and containers” nearby, does not specify why the teen felt compelled to seek out his ex-wife. However, it does say that the ex subsequently forwarded to Oak Ridge the information she received from the teen girl, along with a gut-wrenching narrative about why she filed for divorce from Worrall in February 2020, after roughly a half-decade of marriage.
Worrall, according to the ex’s email, “had what I interpreted (through both observation of physical behaviors such as the way he looked at and hugged her, reading text message exchanges, and gut feeling of what was going on) to be an unusual obsession with his young niece.”
Worrall’s niece was also 16 when he and his ex got married in December 2013, the ex wrote. She said he texted her “frequently and sometimes multiple times a day,” trading selfies with the girl and communicating in ways that “lean[ed] sexual.”
When Worrall’s ex-wife confronted him about his “inappropriate” and “obsessive” ways of relating to his niece, he insisted she was wrong and explained everything away by claiming he was simply “being a father figure to her,” according to the warrant application.
A few days later, the teenager sent screenshots to an Oak Ridge employee ethics email hotline of the text exchanges she had with him, states a probable cause affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Worrall.
“In the email, [the teen] stated she and Worrall first started talking on Snapchat,” the affidavit says, noting that the girl was actually 18 but told Worrall she was just 16. “According to [the teen], Worrall asked if she was younger because he thought that was ‘hot.’ From there, they moved to Telegram and continued their discussion.”
Worrall texted the girl from a number listed as his official contact at Oak Ridge, which was also linked to his government email address, the affidavit goes on.
“You really don’t care that I’m 16?” the girl asked.
“I love that you are,” Worrall responded, according to the affidavit. “This is like a dream come true for me.”
DOE OIG special agents subpoenaed Worrall’s Snapchat records, and found “communications of a sexual nature between many users who stated they had not achieved the age of 18.”
In one, Worrall allegedly instructed a 17-year-old girl to send him a picture of herself topless, then ramped up the orders to extremely graphic levels, the affidavit states. Another 17-year-old told Worrall he would have to pay her for such things, and he sent $20 to the girl’s CashApp account in return for X-rated video footage.
When the girl asked Worrall to suggest things for her to do, the affidavit says he eagerly “offered pointers and helped when it came to how to dress, how to act, and what to film.”
“Here’s a script for the bathroom: camera on sink pointing towards bath/shower,” Worrall told the teen, according to the affidavit. “You undress out of tennis clothes as though [you] just got home. Undress in front of camera. Look at yourself in mirror. Admire your body. Start shower.”
Things got considerably more illicit from there, the affidavit contends.
In another conversation with a different teen, Worrall reminisced about abusing his young niece, gleefully describing in graphic detail the ways he violated her as a child, the affidavit says. She is now 30, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit says investigators made short work of corroborating the allegations against Worrall, tracing the IP address he used to access Snapchat directly to his home in Farragut, a suburb of 25,000 about 20 miles from Knoxville.
Following his arrest, Worrall waived his right to a detention hearing and was jailed pending his scheduled arraignment on October 21.
If convicted, Worrall faces a potential sentence of up to life in prison.
His defense attorneys did not respond on Friday to a request for comment.
