A 19-year-old man has been sentenced to six months in jail for using various social media to lure underage boys across the country to send him lewd images of themselves–and of having sometimes posed as a female to make the initial online connection with the lads.
Jackson Roland Westermeyer of Huntington Beach was also placed on three years formal probation, according to court records.
After Surf City cops arrested Westermeyer in January, Police Chief Robert Handy said at a news conference that investigators believed there were at least 50 to 100 victims–including at least one on the East Coast–from ages 11-17.
Westermeyer pleaded not guilty in Orange County Superior Court in Westminster on Jan. 16.
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Police and the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Keith Burke, claimed that once Westermeyer lured underage boys through social media and convinced them to send “her” lewd photos of themselves, he threatened to tag the images on other social media outlets if they did not send him more nudies.
Before Westermeyer was sentenced, he switched his not guilty plea to guilty of one count of extortion, another of meeting a minor to commit lewd conduct and five counts of possession or control of child pornography–all felonies–and four misdemeanor counts of child annoyance.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.