Middle school student arrested in alleged sextortion scheme with hundreds of potential victims: Police

A middle school student in Stony Point, New York, was arrested following a months-long investigation into a sextortion plot that may involve hundreds of victims, according to local police.

Sextortion — or sexual extortion — refers to when someone coerces a person(s) into sharing explicit photos or videos, then demands money or sexual acts by threatening to release the material, according to the FBI.

The Stony Point Police Department announced this week that the investigation, which began in February, led to the arrest of a Fieldstone Middle School student on multiple felony charges, including use of a child in a sexual performance and promoting a sexual performance by a child.

The juvenile male suspect was arrested in June, but charges were not filed until last week due to the ongoing investigation, police said. The suspect’s name is being withheld because of his age.

“A lot of these cases, they end up out of the state, out of the country, mostly. So it is a little unusual and a little troubling,” Det. Andrew Kryger of the Stony Point Police Department said at a press conference this week.

While six alleged victims have come forward so far, investigators believe there could be “potentially several hundred additional victims,” the police department said in a press release provided to ABC News.

The case involves male students who believed they were exchanging photos with a female on social media, but were actually communicating with a male student who then demanded money and threatened to distribute the explicit images, according to police.

Police officials stress that sextortion is not just a local issue, but a global problem fueled by social media.

“Many parents may be unaware of the extent of these dangers,” the Stony Point Police Department said in their press release, emphasizing the importance of community support and open dialogue between parents and children.

The FBI warned in a January 2024 bulletin that sexual extortion is a growing threat nationwide, with the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations receiving over 13,000 reports of online sexual extortion of minors from October 2021 to March 2023.

Lawmakers in Wisconsin recently passed Bradyn’s Law, which establishes sexual extortion as a new crime and imposes severe penalties, including up to 60 years in prison if the extortion results in the death of a victim. The law is named after Bradyn Bohn, a 15-year-old from Wisconsin who died by suicide in March after police say he fell victim to sexual extortion online.

“The only way that this changes, because it won’t stop, is our voices being louder than everyone else on the internet,” Bradyn’s mother, Brittany Byrd, said in a press conference earlier this year, according to WBAY, an ABC affiliate in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In another tragic case, Jordan DeMay, a Michigan teenager, took his life in 2022 after police say Nigerian scammers threatened to share his photos unless he paid $1,000, ABC News reported previously.

“When I think about the things that they said to him, it hurts me so bad as a mom to think about what he went through in the last hours,” his mother, Jennifer DeMay, told ABC News in 2023.

The Stony Point Police Department, in collaboration with local law enforcement and the North Rockland Central School District, says it plans to host a community forum at Fieldstone Middle School to provide resources on sextortion awareness. The department urges any potential victims to reach out to Det. Kryger.

“It is essential to create safe, judgment-free environments where children feel comfortable reporting concerns,” the Stony Point Police Department said. “We must create an environment that instills confidence and trust, ensuring that our children never feel alone and always know that support is available when they need it.”