- Sextortion is rising among Utah teens, leading to tragic consequences like suicides.
- Experts stress the importance of open communication between parents and children about sextortion.
- Victims are encouraged to report incidents, block perpetrators and avoid paying extortion demands.
ST. GEORGE — A growing number of Utah teens are being manipulated and extorted online and are often too afraid to ask for help.
The crime is known as sextortion. It's on the rise across the nation, and it's leading to deaths among young people, including here in Utah.
The KSL Investigators spoke with experts, investigators and a St. George mother whose son was targeted.
'It was so evil'
Like any mom, Cindy George's eyes light up when she talks about her son.
"My favorite subject," she said. "I would love to tell you about Jake."
He was once a little boy with big dimples and a penchant for playing pranks on his mom. Some of her last memories of Jake include a road trip to the Grand Canyon and his excitement over receiving a cake made out of donuts.
"That was his last birthday, and he said, 'Mom, best cake ever,'" George recalled, holding a photo of Jake and the donut cake.
Jake, who'd just turned 21, died by suicide in 2015.
"At first, it didn't make sense — why my son would take his life because he wasn't depressed," George said.
It wasn't until police gave her Jake's belongings and several letters he wrote that she began to unravel what happened. Jake's letter to his parents directed them to look in the Kik app on his phone and read his messages.
"As I read the conversation, I just shook because it was so evil," George said.
Someone posing as a woman online had convinced Jake to send an intimate photo.
"As soon as he sent it, they said, 'Now we've got you,'" George said.
The blackmailers told Jake to send money or they'd make the photo public by sending it to people he knew. He made three payments, sending a total of $680.
"He paid them everything he had," George said.
But the threats didn't stop. They told Jake he was going to be their personal genie and kept demanding more.
"This all happened in five days," George said. "Five days. I was with him on Sunday, and Friday, he was gone."
Jake was the target of an evil George had never heard of before: sextortion.
What is sextortion?
"Sextortion is essentially when a criminal will try to get, usually, a young man or a young woman to send them pictures of them nude or engaged in various sexual acts and then attempt to extort that victim in order to get money back from them," said Stewart Young, who is the criminal deputy attorney general in the Utah Attorney General's Office. "And they will usually indicate to them that they're going to try to release these pictures or these videos on the internet or to the victim's friends or the victim's family."
Young is seeing an alarming rise in cases.
Last year, Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children task force received 1,264 tips about sextortion. In 2025, it has already received 2,288, which is an 81% increase.
"It affects lots and lots of young people," he said. "It's especially affecting young men."
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, victims of sextortion nationwide have lost more than $65 million since 2021.
And the result can be deadly. Just last year, 15-year-old David Antonio Gonzalez, Jr. died by suicide in Weber County. Investigators say he was being extorted over an intimate image, with the perpetrator demanding $200.
"That's the worst-case scenario, and that has happened a number of times," Young said. "Our hearts go out to those victims, and we do everything we can and to try to track down the defendants that are responsible."
The challenge, Young said, is that the person on the other end of the screen is often in another country, making it difficult to hold them accountable.
A solution
"When we think about the internet, it is boundless, and so are these crime types," said Hayley Elizondo, program manager for the Cyber Tipline public reports team at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
She said the organization's cyber tipline fields calls from parents and children every day about sextortion, and it's a crime that occurs very quickly once an extortioner makes contact with a young person online.
"I've talked to many children who believe that they're the only one who has ever gone through this, and they're not," Elizondo said. "There's a name to this crime, and the blackmailer is to blame."
Because the blackmailers rely on shame, both Elizondo and Young stressed the importance of parents talking to their kids about the crime.
"And explaining to your children, first off, never send pictures to anybody," Young said. "Second off, never send pictures to anybody you don't know. Third, if you send a picture, and that picture gets out, your life is not over."
In the event someone has fallen into the trap, Elizondo said the first thing she tells them is that they are not alone and they are a victim of a crime.
"First, report the user in application," she said. "And it is OK to block them. Do not pay them any money because once a payment is made, that extortioner is going to come back and ask for more money."
Young said in most cases, once the criminal realizes they won't get what they're looking for, they don't follow through with distributing the image.
"Most of these criminals are cowards and most of them do not actually go through with those threats," he said.
And most important, both Young and Elizondo said, is for the victim to tell someone they trust what's happening to them.
'We've got to inform the public'
It's a conversation George wishes every day that she could have had with Jake.
"If he just would have talked to someone about it, we could have said, 'Jake, they can't ruin your life with a picture,'" she told KSL.
George said she would have gotten Jake help if she'd known what he was going through.
"I couldn't catch them," she said. "I could not put these evil people in jail."
Now, almost 10 years after his death, George said knowing that sextortion cases continue to rise dramatically is infuriating.
"That's why I tell this story," she said, "because no one should have to go through this, and we're not stopping it. So, we've got to inform the public."
She hopes Jake's story will help prevent even one young person from finding themselves in the same situation.
"And stop one mommy from having to bury their son," she said.
If you or someone you know is experiencing sextortion, help is available through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline or the organization's call center, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Call 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)
Parents and teens seeking educational resources can explore a free online sextortion simulation and interactive film at noescaperoom.org.
Suicide prevention resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call 988 to connect with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Crisis Hotlines
- Huntsman Mental Health Institute Crisis Line: 801-587-3000
- SafeUT Crisis Line: 833-372-3388
- 988 Suicide and Crisis LifeLine at 988
- Trevor Project Hotline for LGBTQ teens: 1-866-488-7386
Online resources
- NAMI Utah: namiut.org
- SafeUT: safeut.org
- Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988lifeline.org
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Utah chapter: afsp.org/chapter/utah
