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MILLCREEK — A 41-year-old man who police say posed as a teenage boy on social media has been charged with convincing a teen girl to send him explicit pictures, and then sending those pictures to one of her friends when she no longer wanted to talk to him.
Antonio Maese, of Holladay, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with sexual exploitation of a minor and enticing a minor, second-degree felonies; and dealing in harmful materials to a minor, a third-degree felony.
In September, Unified police received a report of a 17-year-old girl who had sent explicit pictures of herself through Snapchat to Maese, whom she believed was a 17-year-old boy. Maese had sent the girl a picture of a teen boy claiming it was him, according to charging documents.
Maese also sent the girl explicit messages, the charges state.
As the messaging continued, the girl felt Maese was trying to become too controlling as he "became upset about (her) talking to her friends and even told her that she was responding too slowly for his liking," according to the charges.
When the girl told Maese that she would stop messaging him, he threatened to "send all of her photos to her family as well as her entire school," the charges allege. Police say he ended up sending one of the photos the girl had sent to him to one of the girl's friends.
"(She) then discovered that Maese is actually a 41-year-old man and not a teenager," charging documents state.
After he was arrested, "Maese admitted to creating a fake persona and got pictures off the internet to pose as a 17- or 18-year-old boy because 'younger people talk to you more.' Maese admitted to sending a text to (the girl) that said, 'You shouldn't have blocked me, I am now going to send your images to everyone' and said he did that because it 'made me mad she stopped talking to me,'" according to the charges.
Police have requested that Maese be held in the Salt Lake County Jail without the possibility of posting bail pending the filing of formal charges.
