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SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake man has been charged with sending child pornography using his ex-boyfriend's social media account in an apparent attempt to blackmail him.
Skyler Cole Tapia, 27, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.
In December, after receiving several tips, an investigator from the Internet Crimes Against Children task force looked at the Facebook messenger chats of Tapia's ex-boyfriend, according to charging documents.
"In chats in the messenger, it appeared that the account holder sent child pornography to other users," the charges state.
But at the time the child pornography was allegedly sent, the ex-boyfriend was in jail and didn't have access to his Facebook page, according to the court documents.
"Through my investigation I found out that Skyler Tapia was in control of (the victim's) account and was sending images of child pornography to blackmail him," the charges allege.
In addition to using his ex's Facebook account, Tapia also used his own Twitter, AOL and Snapchat accounts to "share child pornography with men online to blackmail his ex-boyfriend," the charges state.
