Sextortion: New Online Crime With Devastating Effects

Adrianna Iwasinski, News 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- First there was cyber bullying. Then there was sexting. But now there's a new online crime, sextortion, that is having a devastating impact on the lives of some Oklahomans.

Sextortion involves sex and extortion being used online to bully, harass and embarrass unsuspecting victims.

Tesha Taylor never imagined a simple email would turn her world upside down. She had been hacked before, but never like this. This time, someone snatched her online identity off her Facebook account.

"I found out that somebody was actually in my page acting like me. It was really, really scary," Taylor said.

She said every day for two weeks the imposter taunted, threatened, and got personal information from her friends and even sent nude pictures out saying they were her.

This kind of online extortion is becoming more and more common, especially among young people.

It often starts out with teenagers acting silly in front of a camera, sending each other flirty, sexy texts and pictures. But should the relationship go south, watch out, those images could come back to haunt you.

"The ones that are preying on them know how to do it and how to exploit their weaknesses," said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations Special Agent Steve Tanner.

Tanner is with the state's Internet Crimes Against Children Unit. He said the term "sextortion" is so new, that there are only a few confirmed cases of it around the country.

And it is a crime so humiliating that many are too afraid and too ashamed to report it.

"They think they've done something wrong. They've been coerced by the adult that ‘If you tell I'm going to kill you. I'm going to post your pictures online. I'm going to do other things against you if you tell that this is going on,'" Tanner said.

Once Taylor discovered what happened, she took action, calling and warning her friends, and also calling police.

But by then, it was too late. The damage to her reputation was done.

And for a woman trying to run her own promotion business, those racy photos and fake e-mails were the kiss of death.

"It was traumatizing because I could not do anything about it," Taylor said.

Taylor said she has no idea who her perpetrator was, and why he chose to target her and her friends. Now she just wants to warn others not to share any personal information online.

"Everyday it's still a challenge because people are still kind of leery of talking to me or a hacker," Taylor said.

Her "hacker" hasn't been caught yet, but the attacks against her have stopped.

And if this is happening to you or someone you love, you should report it. As embarrassing as it is, this is a crime, especially if it involves an explicit image of a child under the age of 18. And the only way to get it to stop is to turn the person in.

Learn more about sextortion and where you can go to report it.