Wisconsin - Teen accused of Facebook sex blackmail
Anthony Stancl accused of posing as girl on Facebook, blackmailing students into sex acts
A TEENAGER has been charged with sexual assault after he allegedly posed as a girl on Facebook, had classmates send him naked photos and blackmailed them into performing sex acts.
Anthony Stancl, 18 of New Berlin, Wisconsin, persuaded at least 31 boys to send him compromising pictures and then coerced some of them to perform sexual acts to keep him from releasing the photos on the internet, prosecutors said.
"The kind of manipulation that occurred here is really sinister in my estimation," Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel told the Associated Press.
Mr Stancl is accused of posing as a girl, named either Kayla or Emily, who would ask his schoolmates to perform sexual acts on a male friend of her or trick them into sending nude photos or videos of themselves.
They were told that if they didn't comply, the girl would send the nude photos or movies to their friends and post them on the internet, according to the criminal complaint.
Mr Stancl has been charged with five counts of child enticement, two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of third-degree sexual assault, possession of child pornography, repeated sexual assault of the same child and making a bomb threat.
The incidents occurred from mid-2007 until the time of Mr Stancl's arrest in November last year.
The investigation into Mr Stancl began after bomb threats in November led to the closure of his school, New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School, JSOnline reports.
Police said the threats were sent via email from a computer that Mr Stancl was logged into at a public library.
During the bomb threat investigation into Mr Stancl one of his alleged victims went to police after Mr Stancl asked him to get nude pictures of his brother, prosecutors said.
More than 300 naked photos and movie clips of his classmates and another 600 professionally made pornographic movies of children were allegedly found on Mr Stancl's computer.
Mr Stancl's lawyer, Craig Kuhary, told the Associated Press his client plans to plead not guilty.
"It's too early in the case for me to make a statement, other than the fact at some point we are going to go into events that had taken place earlier that might have had some impact on what he did here," he said.
