Vengeful SC teen posed as ex-boyfriend to send and solicit child porn, cops say

A South Carolina teenager faces multiple felony counts after using social media accounts in her ex-boyfriend’s name to send and solicit nude photos of underage girls to get revenge on him, according to police.

It happened in the Chesterfield County town of Cheraw, where police in January received several complaints from parents of teenage girls who said their daughters messages on Snapchat and Instagram from someone they thought was a male classmate at Cheraw High School, according to a statement from the police department.

The messages included repeated requests for the girls to send nude photos of themselves over Snapchat or Instagram, according to police. None of the girls sent photos but instead reported the messages to their parents.

“Once they refused the request for nude photos, the messages transitioned to threatening and harassing in nature,” the statement reads. “In at least three of the incidents, the sender messaged a photo that depicted the image of a juvenile male’s genitalia.”

Cheraw police launched a criminal investigation that included interviewing the initial suspect, whose name was on the accounts, and searching electronic devices and social media accounts.

Electronic data and data from the devices tracked the Snapchat and Instagram messages to a single address in the city of Cheraw, police said. The 15-year-old suspect confessed to police that she created the social media accounts “where it would appear that they belonged to her ex-boyfriend.”

The girl also confessed to sending nude photos to young girls and asking for nude photos of them, police said.

When asked what her motivation was for creating the accounts and sending the pictures, the girl said, “Revenge, for their relationship ending,” according to police. She also was “jealous that her ex-boyfriend had been chosen to perform a solo in the State Finals for Band.”

The girl was charged as a juvenile with multiple counts of possession of child pornography, disseminating child pornography and producing child pornography, according to police. Because of her status as a juvenile, the case will be handled in Family Court.

“We were able to identify the suspect who was responsible for committing this crime,” the police statement reads, “but more importantly the Cheraw Police Department Detective Unit was able to exonerate a young man who had been publicly accused of committing this crime.”