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SALT LAKE CITY — A man already accused in one case of sexually extorting a woman is now facing additional criminal charges after investigators say they found numerous other victims.
Micheal Layne Andersen, 28, of Ogden, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with six counts of aggravated sexual extortion of a child and eight counts of aggravated sexual extortion, both first-degree felonies.
Those charges come on the heels of Andersen being charged in February with six counts of sexual extortion, a second-degree felony, plus stalking and distribution of an intimate image, class A misdemeanors; and five counts of electronic communications harassment, a class B misdemeanor.
From December through March 2021, a West Valley woman received "phone calls, and voicemails from an unknown person utilizing many different phone numbers and social media accounts" who threatened to post nude photos of her online "if she did not complete certain sexual tasks or send additional photographs," according to charging documents.
During that time, the unknown person, later identified by police as Andersen, created dozens of phone numbers "to extort and harass" the woman, the charges state.
After Andersen was arrested, police served a search warrant on his phone. It was during that search that similar conversations were found on several media platforms with other women and girls, according to police.
In one case, Andersen contacted a 14-year-old girl "via text and Snapchat over the course of a few weeks in 2021. Per his request, the girl sent him multiple nude images of herself. As a result, (Andersen) threatened to send the images to people if she did not send additional photos or have … sex with him," according to the charges.
Police also learned that in 2019, three more women between the ages of 19 and 25, and a 13-year-old girl each made reports to law enforcement "claiming that they had been harassed/extorted" by Andersen, the charges state.
Another woman, 28, told police she had been harassed by Andersen for eight years, according to police, who said Andersen was creating new profiles on social media every time the women would block an old one.
"The individual would then create a new profile and would continue to send her messages. She stated that she felt scared, disgusted and enraged. She reported this incident to police. She was able to figure out that it was (Andersen) because several other girls in the community had been contacted by the same profiles which they had confirmed to be (him)," charging documents state.
A 26-year-old woman who said she knew Andersen when she lived in Tooele, reported that he started sending messages to her on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat about four years ago, one of which included a picture of her, according to police. He "began to tell her that if she did not send more images then (he) would post the photograph and would send it to her boss," the charges state.
Then in 2021, a man, believed to be Andersen, called the woman asking if she still lived at a certain address.
"The individual proceeded to tell her that (he) had hacked her devices and if she did not send (him) nude photographs then her information would be released. She hung up the phone. By this time, she had realized that many other girls that she knew from Tooele had been harassed by (Andersen)," according to the charges.
After the woman reported the harassment to police "(she) stated that she began to receive messages/screenshots from her peers that had located fake profiles online claiming to be her selling nude photographs of herself," charging documents state.
Yet another victim told investigators she was harassed by Andersen on Snapchat in 2019 when she was 17 and living in Tooele.
According to prosecutors, Andersen "has been committing crimes of extortion, exploitation and harassment for many years and has been using various online social media profiles and phone numbers to facilitate the crimes, such as (Snapchat and Facebook).
"There are also additional victims of his crimes which have not yet been identified. The investigation has uncovered that the defendant has been victimizing females, adults and minors, since 2014," prosecutors state.
