27/09/2013
Temecula, California:A college student was arrested Thursday for
allegedly hijacking the webcams of young women -- among them reigning
Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf -- taking nude images, then blackmailing his
victims to send him more explicit material or else be exposed.
Jared James Abrahams, a
19-year-old computer science student from Temecula, California,
surrendered on Thursday to the FBI on federal extortion charges, the
agency announced. Authorities say he victimized young women
surreptitiously, by taking control of their computers then photographing
them as they changed out of their clothes.
Abrahams appeared in
court later in the day, then was released "on intensive pretrial
supervision and home detention with electronic monitoring" after his
parents signed bond agreements totaling $50,000, FBI spokeswoman Lourdes
Arocho said. U.S. District Judge Jean Rosenbluth ruled that he could
use a single desktop computer at his parents' home for school only,
albeit only after monitoring software is applied.
When he admitted what
he'd done in June, Abrahams said he had 30 to 40 "slave computers" -- or
other people's electronic devices he controlled -- and has had as many
as 150 total, according to a criminal complaint.
His arrest came six
months after a teenager identified in court documents as C.W. alerted
authorities. She has since publicly identified herself as Cassidy Wolf,
the recently crowned Miss Teen USA. She touted news reports of her
alleged tormenter's arrest on her Twitter feed.
At the time she contacted
police, in March, Wolf was not a national figure -- even though she was
Miss Teen California -- and lived in an apartment and attended Orange
Coast College in Costa Mesa.
Wolf got a Facebook alert
that someone had tried to change her password to the social networking
site, then noticed other passwords had been changed and that her Twitter
avatar was now a half-nude picture of herself.
A short time later, she
received what would be the first of many messages, this one featuring
pictures of Wolf at her Riverside County address and others apparently
taken months earlier when she lived in Orange County, says the criminal
complaint. The message explained "what's going to happen" if Wolf didn't
send pictures or videos or "do what I tell you to do" in a five-minute
Skype videoconference, according to the criminal complaint.
"Either you do one of the
things listed below or I upload these pics and a lot more (I have a LOT
more and those are better quality) on all your accounts for everybody
to see and your dream of being a model will be transformed into a
pornstar (sic)," he wrote.
Recalling that day, Wolf told NBC's "Today" show she started "screaming (and) bawling my eyes out."
"I wasn't sure what to do," she said in August, shortly after her Miss Teen USA win. "So it was terrifying."
The messenger had taken
great efforts to hide his online identity. But investigators were
eventually able to find corresponding e-mails, IP addresses and other
communications they linked to Abraham. They also tied him to online
forums asking about malware, how to control webcams, and hacking into
Facebook accounts.
Investigators also
linked him to at least eight other young women -- some of them, like
Wolf, from Southern California, though others were from as far away as
Moldova. The victims told authorities similar stories: of a person they
did not know saying, and in some cases proving, he had nude images and
making demands as a result.
The stalker claimed to
have 1,000 photographs of one woman, the complaint said. When she asked,
"Why are you doing this to me?" the response was, "I told you I'll
answer any questions after you Skype."
As an FBI agent was
speaking by phone to this young woman, she logged onto her Instagram
account to find it populated by nude pictures of her, the complaint
said.
A few young women
apparently complied with the demands for a Skype session. The man
promised not to record the sessions and he made it look like he was
erasing the nude pictures of them. One such session was found on the
suspect's phone, police said.
Investigators examining
e-mail exchanges found one in which an alleged victim wrote she was
downloading Skype and pleading, "Please remember im only 17. Have a
heart."
"I'll tell you this
right now! I do NOT have a heart!!!" he wrote back, per the complaint.
"However I do stick to my deals! Also age doesn't mean a thing to me."
Authorities executed a
search warrant at Abrahams' home on June 4, at which time he
"voluntarily agreed to speak" with a pair of FBI agents. Describing
himself in that interview as a college freshman who was good with
computers, the complaint said, he admitted using malware and his
expertise to "watch his victims change their clothes and ... use the
photographs against them."
Abrahams further
admitted the e-mail accounts, VPN, domain names or other pieces of the
electronic puzzle that investigators used to build a case were his,
according to the criminal complaint.
Outside the court
Thursday, Abrahams' lawyer Alan Eisner said that his client's family
feels "profound regret and remorse" over what happened. He told CNN affiliate KTLA that Abrahams is autistic.
"The family wants to apologize for the consequences of his behavior to the families who were affected," Eisner said.
As to the now 19-year-old Wolf, she is juggling her studies at the New York Film Academy with duties tied to being Miss Teen USA.
A lifelong dancer and
aspiring model, Wolf is using her platform to promote a number of
initiatives -- including, given her personal experience, the issue of
cyberstalking.
"It does happen," she said in an interview with CNN affiliate WPIX. "And there are ways to prevent it."
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