Current Topics
Have you ever wondered what the FBI is focusing on at a given time period? Or what crimes are most apparent and rising in frequency?
You have come to the right place. In this post I will be discussing a major crime coined “Sextortion” that has been occupying and worrying the FBI increasingly as it has been magnified by all of the stay at home rules imposed on our country this year and the increase of internet use.
However, before I go into detail about that, let's start with a little background information about the FBI and some of the experts in the field so we can properly situate ourselves.
History of the FBI
The FBI was founded in 1908 by President Teddy Roosevelt who wanted a group of special agents who would work for the Department of Justice to help investigate and combat the rising crime rates that were developing as cities continued to grow exponentially.
He worked with Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to create this force and Bonaparte was the one who actually found and hired the first 34 agents that would form the FBI. Bonaparte then had his Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch work with the Department of Justice to receive different cases and assign them to one of the 34 agents that Bonaparte had hired. It was this position of Chief Examiner that became what we now know as the FBI Director, making Finch the first FBI Director.
Here is a photo of Roosevelt and Bonaparte along with his cabinet.
The FBI Today
The FBI has since had 20 Directors, each of which I could argue was an expert in the field. The current Director, Christopher Wray, was sworn in on August 2nd, 2017 and has experience as a prosecutor, in counterterrorism, and has served on the Presidents Corporate Fraud Task Force all prior to becoming FBI Director.
Due to the nature of the job and the sensitivity of the information being handled, it is many times difficult to find the exact names of agents that worked on individual cases, however, I would suggest that most FBI Special Agents and employees are very knowledgeable in at least a specific topic within the FBI. In certain publications and interviews an agent may be named but out of the safety of everyone, it is typically best that they remain under the umbrella name of the FBI.
Now that we know more about the FBI and those within it, let's take a look at sextortion.
What is Sextortion?
According to the FBI webpage on Sextortion, sextortion is defined as a crime that happens online when an adult convinces a person who is younger than 18 to share sexual pictures or perform sexual acts on a webcam. This can be easily thought of as extortion but done explicitly over the internet and by means of sexually loaded demands coupled with threatening a victim's family and friends while listing off personal facts about said victim.
A public service announcement by the FBI on sextortion explains more about how sextortion is done in practice, explaining that many times the crime begins with the victim believing they are communicating with someone that is their own age either looking for a relationship or who has something to offer them, neither of which are true.
This service announcement also shows the cycle victims quickly get put into of being threatened and producing the requested explicit material, creating shame, fear, and confusion, preventing them many times from reporting it or asking for help.
In this news clip FBI Special Agent Siobhan Johnson speaks on how easy it can be for individuals to fall prey to sextortion although emphasizing that being a victim of sextortion is never one's own fault.
Cases of Sextortion
Here we see a press release discussing a case the FBI was involved in regarding the sentencing of Justin Richard Testani, a 30 year old man from Orange City who was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the sextortion of multiple young girls.
Testani posed as a teenage girl who was a model, which is one of the techniques that the FBI’s public service announcement warned that these predators will use. This is how he convinced the girls to send him photos of themselves. He then threatened them and their families to get them to send him videos of sexually explicit conduct.
These were just some of his methods and ways of coercion.
Unfortunately, being an online crime it is much easier for predators to take on multiple personalities and they are not limited in who they can target. This is evidenced in a FBI blog article about one particular case involving the predator Lucas Michael Chansler and asks the public for help in identifying his other victims.
Ashley Reynolds, the now 20 year old female in the video below was one of Chansler’s victims. In this video one can see how Sextortion develops so quickly and the impact it has on victims.
As a result of Ashley stepping out and bringing her abuse to law enforcement officials, Chansler was sentenced to 106 years in prison for his sextortion of 350 teenage girls. As of when this article was written in 2015, only 105 of the girls had been identified. Of these 105, the girls were found to have been in 26 different US States, 3 Canadian Provinces, and the United Kingdom.
The geographical reach of his terrorism and sextortion is shown in the map below.
An important aspect of the capture and sentencing of Chansler was the fact that Ashley and her parents stepped out and contacted law enforcement for help. Here we see experts Assistant Director of Victim Services Kathryn Turman, Victim Specialist Michelle Thorne, Violent Crimes Against Children Section Supervisory Special Agent Brooke Donahue, and Special Agent Larry Meyer, discuss the importance and role that the FBI’s Victim Services Division has had on this particular case and in providing resources to the victims of predators like Chansler.
Sextortion: Individuals and the FBI
Sextortion can happen to anyone and chances are that someone you know has at some point been pressured into sending photos of themselves to someone that they did not want to. This affects one's children, friends, family members, and is prevalent in every community across the nation and beyond. This is why individuals should be concerned about sextortion and its reach on those they know along with why the FBI is so dedicated to stopping and finding justice for those who have been a victim of sextortion.
The FBI remains dedicated to investigating, solving, and prosecuting cases of sextortion. Given that the Mission of the FBI begins with “Protect the American people” and one of their main priorities is to “combat significant cyber criminal activity,” they are doing just that. They want Americans, especially teenagers to be safe from all crime, especially that which can occur online in the confines of their own homes.
The FBI has launched a Stop Sextortion initiative which has included awareness campaigns in schools aimed at informing children and teenagers about potential situations they could encounter online. They are also educating schools, caregivers, and parents of risks that children face online in an attempt to keep guardians vigilant about what their children are doing online in order to keep them safe.
Resources
If you are interested in learning more about sextortion or reading other cases about it many more can be found on this search page.
If you believe you or someone you know has been a victim of sextortion in any way, or any other crime for that matter, the FBI has a Victims Services Division that wants to help. You can also reach out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which is dedicated to helping victims of exploitation and is how Ashley’s victimization was brought to light.
