A 17-YEAR-OLD Irish girl was allegedly forced into stripping on Skype by a 19-year-old US man who has been charged with hacking into the webcams of several women to extort nude photos and videos from them.
The claim is contained in an FBI affidavit that was presented in court as Jared James Abrahams from California was charged with crimes known by police as “sextortion”.
Abrahams is alleged to have used malicious software to remotely operate webcams to capture nude photos and videos of at least seven women as they changed clothes, some of whom he knew personally and others he found by hacking Facebook pages.
The FBI claim that the man then threatened the women that he would distribute the photos online unless they provided nude pictures of themselves.
The teenager in Ireland is one of the women and she is said to have responded to the demands by writing: “Please remember I’m 17. Have a heart,” according to the court record.
Abrahams allegedly responded: “I’ll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart. However, I do stick to my deals. Also age doesn’t mean a thing to me!!!”
The girl then allegedly stripped during a Skype session, according to the FBI affidavit.
Gardaí said that they were not aware of the case and that if the offence was committed in another jurisdiction they would not be involved.
Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf
The case came to public attention after one of the Abrahams’ victims Cassidy Wolf, who subsequently won the Miss Teen USA beauty pageant, went public about what happened.
Cassidy Wolf told the website of NBC’s “Today” show that earlier this year she had received an anonymous email in which the sender claimed to have stolen images from the camera on her home computer.
Instead, Wolf went to authorities, and an investigation was launched in March.
Abrahams subsequently surrendered to agents at the FBI office in Orange County to face a charge of extortion that could send him to federal prison for up to two years.
He was later freed on $50,000 bail but a judge confined him to his family home, ordered him to wear a GPS monitor, and said he could only use the home computer for schoolwork, with software to be installed that will monitor its use.
- Additional reporting by Rónán Duffy
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