A 17-year-old Canadian has been arrested in Montreal after allegedly taking photos of a topless, underage Milford girl over a webcam connection, and then threatening to post the pictures online if she didn’t perform sex acts in front of the camera, Milford police said.
Police received a complaint in November of an online sexual incident involving topless photos taken via a webcam of a girl under 15 years old.
The girl was using the webcam to interact on a chat site with a teenage boy who claimed to be from Virginia, police said. During the interaction, the girl posed topless in front of her webcam, police said. The boy claimed to have taken photos of the girl using the webcam and threatened to post them on Facebook, unless she performed specific sex acts, also in front of the webcam, police said.
“She didn’t know pictures were being taken,” said Milford police spokesman Officer Jeffrey Nielsen.
Nielsen said the two met using a teen chat application on Facebook, which took them to a space outside of the popular social networking site where they engaged in a video Web chat.
Investigators from the Milford Police Department’s Computer Crimes Unit and the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal Specialized Unit for Sexual Child Abuse were able to identify the boy using computer forensic evidence. On April 16, members of the SPVM arrested the youth in Montreal.
SPVM spokesman Sgt. Ian Lafreniere said the 17-year-old was charged with possession of juvenile pornography, extortion and luring. The boy was released with conditions, including having no contact with the victim, and staying off the Internet.
The suspect has no criminal background and comes from a “quiet neighborhood,” Lafreniere said.
Lafreniere said the boy’s family was in “shock” over the allegations, but added “unfortunately, it can happen anywhere.” He said all types of people engage in sex crimes, especially over the Internet, because they think they are surfing anonymously.
“People who commit these crimes will never do this face-to-face,” Lafreniere said. “They are in the comfort of their own homes and feel more comfortable.”
He said the same feeling of comfort also applies to the victims of these types of crimes.
“With the Internet, people feel it’s safe, and they wouldn’t normally pose topless,” Lafreniere said.
Lafreniere said Montreal police are investigating a similar case in which an underage girl posed for nude pictures online, and the male threatened to post the pictures unless she engaged in sexual intercourse.
“You have to be extremely careful as parents with what your kids are doing, especially on the computer,” Lafreniere said. “Sometimes parents have a false feeling that their child is safe. (The Internet can be) very dangerous. A picture can be on the Web forever.”
Lafreniere said the investigation with Milford police was a “perfect case of partnership.”
“A lot of people think if they do something on the Internet the victim is far away, but we worked together to solve it,” Lafreniere said. “This is a good preventive message.”
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