A man in Northern Ireland has been\u00a0sentenced to life for several crimes, including manslaughter, after using social media sites to blackmail and sexually abuse at least 70 minors\u00a0in several countries. <\/p>\n
Alexander McCartney, 26, was sentenced by a judge at Belfast Crown Court on Friday for child\u00a0sexual\u00a0offenses, blackmail and the manslaughter of a 12-year-old girl who took her own life in the United States in 2018 after being \u201ccatfished,\u201d according to a statement from Northern Ireland\u2019s\u00a0Public Prosecution Service\u00a0(PPS). <\/p>\n
Catfishing \u2013 often used on social media \u2013 is when a person uses false information and images to create a fake identity online with the intention of tricking, harassing, or scamming another person. <\/p>\n
According to authorities, McCartney pretended to be a young girl, befriended victims on social media and manipulated them into sending him nude images of themselves. <\/p>\n
The victims were then threatened \u201cinto sending him indecent images and videos of themselves,\u00a0forcing them to engage in depraved and sometimes dangerous sexual acts,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
McCartney \u2013 who targeted around 3,500 girls from Northern Ireland, Ireland, Great Britain, the US and New Zealand \u2013 sought to \u201cexploit that vulnerability in the most shocking ways,\u201d\u00a0acting head of the PPS Serious Crime Unit Catherine Kierans said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll\u00a0McCartney\u2019s victims were young, innocent children\u201d as young as 10 years old and \u201cstruggling with identity and body image issues and had reached out for help on social media,\u201d Kierans\u00a0said. <\/p>\n
In total, McCartney\u00a0pleaded guilty to\u00a0185 charges involving 70 victims.\u00a0McCartney must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison before he can be considered for parole. <\/p>\n
\u201cTragically, one of his young victims, who was just 12, had taken her own life during an online chat in which he was threatening her and forcing her to engage in sexual activity,\u201d Kierans\u00a0noted.\u00a0She\u00a0said that the girl,\u00a0an American,\u00a0and McCartney never met in person. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we discover this activity, or it is reported to us, we remove it, lock the violating account and report it to the authorities,\u201d the social media site said.\u00a0It\u00a0added that the app has \u201cextra protections\u00a0for teens to make it difficult for them to be contacted by strangers.\u201d <\/p>\n
The PPS is working to identify more\u00a0of McCartney\u2019s victims, according to its statement. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A man in Northern Ireland has been\u00a0sentenced to life for several crimes, including manslaughter, after using social media sites to blackmail and sexually abuse at least 70 minors\u00a0in several countries. Alexander McCartney, 26, was sentenced by a judge at Belfast Crown Court on Friday for child\u00a0sexual\u00a0offenses, blackmail and the manslaughter of a 12-year-old girl who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}