SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA – A U.S. District Court judge sentenced a Temecula College student to a year and six months in prison for hacking as many as 150 online accounts to extort young females into sending him nude photos and video.
Judge James V. Selna. sentenced Jared James Abrahams, 20, today.
Authorities also said Abrahams also made his victims submit to Skype sessions in which he convinced two teens to undress.
Abrahams targeted young women he knew, and he got other victims after hacking into Facebook pages.
Using hacking software, Abrahams took control of victims’ email accounts, social media accounts and even their computers – which allowed him to remotely turn on web cameras and occasionally take pictures of naked victims.
In the sentencing memo to the court, prosecutors wrote: “In some cases, this type of criminal behavior can be life-changing for the victims – especially for vulnerable victims who may feel it is impossible to rebuild their tarnished reputations. Stated differently, individuals like defendant have the ability to affect a person’s life in frightening ways by using the broad reach of the Internet.”
Authorities say this concludes the latest of the “sextortion” cases in Southern California.
After being arrested last year by the FBI, Abrahams pleaded guilty on November 12 to one count of computer hacking and three counts of extortion, officials said.
Abrahams targeted young women he knew, and he identified other victims after hacking into Facebook pages. Using hacking software, Abrahams took control of victims’ email accounts, social media accounts and even their computers – which allowed him to remotely turn on web cameras and occasionally take pictures of naked victims.
Abrahams used the nude photos to extort victims by threatening to post the compromising photos or videos to the victims’ social media accounts – unless the victim either sent more nude photos or videos, or engaged in a Skype session with him and did what he said for five minutes, according to officials.
Several teens and women in their early 20s were victimized when Abrahams posted nude photos to their social media accounts. At least two victims consented to the Skype sessions proposed by Abrahams to keep their photos off the Internet, say officials.