Marrietta Times: Sheriff warns of sextortion scam targeting Noble County boys

Jul 18
“Sheriff Jason Mackie would like to notify parents of a sextortion scam that is currently targeting juveniles in the Noble County Area,” a Sheriff’s Office Facebook post said Sunday.

According to the post, an unknown person is posing as a female named Elizabeth White and has been talking with male juveniles through Facebook Messenger.

“The alleged female attempts to get juveniles to share inappropriate images/videos and then uses those to exhort them for money,” the post said.

According to the post, the juveniles are threatened that if they don’t pay a certain amount of money the alleged female will send the images/videos to the juvenile’s friends and family.
“Even if a juvenile doesn’t send any inappropriate pictures/images, the alleged female could use other images, saying they are the juvenile during the attempt to extort them,” the post said.

The Noble County Sheriff’s Office is asking that anyone who has added the alleged female as a friend on social media platforms report and block the profile immediately to avoid falling victim to the scam.

According to the post, the sheriff’s office is investigating the Facebook account while working with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

There have been no sextortion crimes involving juveniles reported in Washington County, according to Washington County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Mark Warden

“We’ve had these types of scams,” Warden said. “We’ve had that happen to adults.”

He said he hasn’t experienced this type of crime with juveniles yet during his career.

Sextortion is on the rise nationally.

According to the Department of Justice’s website, in 2022 law enforcement agencies received over 7,000 reports related to the online sextortion of minors, resulting in at least 3,000 victims, who were primarily boys and more than 12 of these victims were reported as having died by suicide.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website said financial sextortion – where the perpetrator of the crime asks the victim for money to not release nude or sexual images of the victim – is on the rise. The website said the NCMEC received 10,731 financial sextortion reports in 2022 and 10,731 reports in 2023. That is an increase of almost 150%.

The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill to address sextortion on June 26, which has been introduced in the Ohio Senate. HB 531 creates the crimes of sexual extortion, which can range from a third- to a first-degree felony, and aggravated sexual extortion if crime results in serious physical harm or death and which garners an additional up to 10-year prison sentence.

The law is called Braden’s Law after an Ohio boy, Braden Markus, who was an Olentangy High School student who was the victim of sextortion and committed suicide in October 2021.

One way to protect children from the crime of sextortion is to talk to them, according to Warden.

“Sit down with your kids and have a conversation,” he said. “You can never believe who you’re talking to on the internet. The pictures aren’t real.”

He said scammers talk to people on the internet and draw them in.

“Next thing you know, there’s a video or pictures exchanged,” Warden said and then the scammer asks the victim for money or they will post the picture or video.

“I think the best thing is (to) have a good conversation with your kid,” Warden said.