‘Sextortion’ Becoming More Common as Cyber Crime
Federal prosecutors and child-safety advocates say they are seeing a rise in cases of online sexual extortion, also called “sextortion.”
According to experts, teens who text naked cellphone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the web are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and family unless they pose for more explicit porn, The Associated Press reports.
While no one currently tracks the numbers of cases involving sextortion in state and federal courts, prosecutors and others point toward several recent high-profile examples victimizing teens in a dozen states. In Alabama, a 24-four-old man was sentenced to 18 years in prison after admitting sending threatening emails on social-networking sites extorting nude photos from more than 50 young women in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
In Wisconsin, a 18-year-old male received 15 years in prison in February after posing as a girl on Facebook to trick male high-school classmates into sending him nude cellphone photos, which he then used to extort them for sex.
More recently, a young man in California was last week convicted for sextorting a 16-year-old girl after photographing sexual act and then threatening to release photos and video if she did not agree to have sex with him. The man was ultimately charged with forcing the girl to performing a sexual act and communicating with a minor with the intent of committing a sexual offense.
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