PHOENIX — There’s a warning for all of you with teenagers. The FBI is warning that sextortion cases are on the rise.
It’s been more than 10 years since Ashley Reynolds got these texts while attending Deer Valley High School in Glendale.
The stranger told her:
"I have naked pictures of you." "They're going to be sent to all ur friends."
"I need you to take pictures in your bra if u don't want them to see you."
The messages went on for a year.
Reynolds still remembers how she felt at just 14 years old.
“I just got afraid. I didn’t know,” says Reynolds.
Reynolds didn’t tell anyone. She had never taken a naked picture, but thought he may have hacked into her webcam.
“I eventually sent him the pictures thinking it would be done,” says Reynolds.
Instead he wanted more.
“Every single night I was sending over 60 naked pictures of myself,” says Reynolds.
Lucas Chansler, a 31-year-old from Florida, is serving 105 years behind bars for what he did to Reynolds and hundreds of others.
The FBI says sextortion plots like that are happening in Arizona.
“Often times that's through deception, through threats, by offering money or gifts and they're able to obtain these photos and then they'll ask for more,” says Jill McCabe, the Public Affairs Specialist for FBI Phoenix.
Reynolds says the different scenarios are endless, with all the social media apps.
“We’re living in a virtual reality,” says Reynolds.
Although the FBI has resources online for parents and teachers, Reynolds wants schools to start warning kids.
“They are so afraid to bring this into the curriculum because of the word sextortion you have the word sex in it,” says Reynolds.
Data from nonprofit THORN said suspects threaten two in three sextortion survivors before the age of 16.
Reynolds says any child can easily fall victim.
“I’m your average person. I’m your average girl,” says Reynolds.
